Mimi’s Prayer
from the opera La Boheme

I fear I’ll die before the healing sun of Spring
Arrives to thaw the mucus in my frozen chest.
There is no heat within my tiny squalid room
To counteract the wind that seeps in so grotesque
a manner, turning into hoarfrost everything.

My frigid fingers pain when trying to create
The artificial flowers that I construct to sell
Upon the corners of the narrow snow-slush streets.
The consumptive cough that wracks my lungs I cannot quell;
There is no other course for me to contemplate.

Rodolfo, once the sun that warmed by frozen heart,
No longer tolerates the bondage of my love.
I’m now unbearably alone in my despair,
No one to care or understand the why thereof
I live or die, no one to weep when I depart.

Oh, Spring, let me survive to see once more the sun
Rise up above the Paris roofs; to feel its heat
Inflate my lungs with healing breath and let me live
To know once more Rodolfo’s love. So bitter-sweet.
Is life. Dear God, just let me feel once more the sun!