The bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Where once, by that low-lying shore,

In waters never known before

The Finnish fisherman, sole creature,

And left forlorn by stepdame Nature,

Cast ragged nets, – today, along

Those shores, astir with life and motion,

Vast shapely palaces in throng

And towers are seen: from every ocean,

From the world’s end, the ships come fast,

To reach the loaded quays at last.

The Neva now is clad in granite

With many a bridge to overspan it;

The islands lie beneath a screen

Of gardens deep in dusky green.

To that young capital is drooping

The crest of Moscow on the ground,

A dowager in purple, stooping

Before an empress newly crowned.

I love thee, city of Peter’s making;

I love thy harmonies austere,

And Neva’s sovran waters breaking

Along her banks of granite sheer;

Thy tracery iron gates; thy sparkling,

Yet moonless, meditative gloom

And thy transparent twilight darkling;

And when I write within my room

Or, lampless, read, – then, sunk in slumber,

The empty thoroughfares, past number,

Are piled, stand clear upon the night;

The Admiralty spire is bright;

Nor may the darkness mount, to smother

The golden cloudland of the light,

For soon one dawn succeeds another

With barely half-an-hour of night.

I love thy ruthless winter, lowering

With bitter frost and windless air;

The sledges along Neva scouring;

Girls’ cheeks – no roses so bright and fair!

The flash and noise of balls, the chatter;

The bachelor’s hour of feasting, too;

The cups that foam and hiss and spatter,

The punch that in the bowl burns blue.

I love the warlike animation

On playing-fields of Mars; to see

The troops of foot and horse in station,

And their superb monotony;

Their ordered, undulating muster;

Flags, tattered on the glorious day;

Those brazen helmets in their luster

Shot through and riddled in the fray.

I love thee, city of soldiers, blowing

Smoke from thy forts: thy booming gun;

– A Northern empress is bestowing

Upon the royal house a son!

Or when, another battle won,

Proud Russia holds her celebration;

Or when the Neva breaking free

Her dark blue ice bears out to sea

And scents the spring, in exultation.

Now, city of Peter, stand thou fast,

Foursquare, like Russia, vaunt thy splendor!

The very element shall surrender

And make her peace with thee at last.