When Death Comes at Christmastime |
By Dimitri Shostakovich |
When death must come at Christmastime,
There is a special grief, A mourning that must mix with joy, A pain that must be brief. There is an anguish underneath The labyrinth of light That longs for simple emptiness To contemplate the night. But life must bubble on its way And pleasure be put on, For neither sorrow nor delight Is ever left alone. And, like the Virgin, we must smile With enigmatic grace As we receive the fragile gift That nothing can replace. |