Bronze Horseman

There, on the marge so desolate
 He stood, with mighty thoughts elate
 And sorry skiff
 Of Neva drifted seaward!
 The moss-grown miry bank with rare
 Hovels were dotted here and there
 The murm'ring woodlands
 On sunshine, all in misty shroud
 O' sunshine higher, in misty shroud
 The statue's rising o'er nations' crowd
 Here
 And thus He mused
 "From here, indeed
 Shall we strike terror
 Onto the Swede?"
 And here a city
 By our labour
 Founded, shall gall
 Our haughty neighbour
 "Here cut" - so Nature gives command
 "Your window through
 On Europe; stand!
 Gem of the North, amazing
 In pride and splendour blazing
 Where once, low-lying shore
 In waters never known 'fore
 Those shores, astir with motion
 And towers on the ocean
 The Neva's clad in granite
 With bridge to overspan it
 Islands lie beneath a screen
 Of gardens
 Deep in dusky green of waters
 Silent
 That you eye!
 I love thy stone harmonies so austere
 Along your glum banks of granite sheer
 Thy tracery irony gates and your sparkling
 And thy transparent twilight darkling
 "The Bronze Horseman
 Thou art the guard of burg!"
 Smoke from thy forts: thy booming gun
 Empire holds its celebration
 Now, Petersburg, stand thou fast
 Foursquare vaunt thy nation's splendour!
 So we sing the hosanna
 To the city of sea
 This ain't fata morgana
 But the autocracy
 For Ye!
 Our legacy!