Strong from the stormy Lake, In Valdaï vales the forest's mossy floor, From fir-woods vast and lone, In one full stream the braided currents pour. "Build up your granite piles I hear the River's scornful Genius say: Your palaces sublime, And flash your golden turrets in the day! "But in my waters cold Of empires and of dynasties the fate : Unchanged, unconquered still, And smile to note your triumph: mine can wait. "Your fetters I allow, As a strong man may bow His sportive neck to meet a child's command, That in one awful hour [stand. Could whelm your halls and temples where they "When infant Rurik first His Norseland mother nursed, My willing flood the future chieftain bore: To Alexander's fame I lent my ancient name, What time my waves ran red with Pagan gore. "Then Peter came. I laughed To feel his little craft Borne on my bosom round the marshy isles: My chafing floods I laid, And saw my shores transfixed with arrowy piles. "I wait the far-off day When other dreams shall sway The House of Empire builded by my side, From yonder palace-door, And cast their wavering colors on my tide, "Dreams where white temples rise By waters blue, which winter never frets, - And shoot on high the reedy minarets. "Shadows of mountain-peaks Vex my unshadowed creeks; Dark woods o'erhang my silvery birchen bowers; And islands, bald and high, Break my clear round of sky, And ghostly odors blow from distant flowers. "Then, ere the cold winds chase These visions from my face, I see the starry phantom of a crown, This cheating pomp is cold, A moment hover, as the veil drops down. "Build on! That day shall see Swift as the wind, and silent as the snow, Your domes shall crack and fall: My bolts of ice shall strike your barriers low!" On palace, temple, spire, In thousand sparkles o'er the city fell: The Neva where he wound Cambridge Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. |