“Woe to me sinner old!  Woe!  Once I cheated—­
  When from the church door I ran,
And in the depths of the forest strayed hidden
  With my beloved Ivan.

“Woe to me!  Burning in hell’s leaping fires
  Surely will soon be my soul! 
I took a pair of eggs once at a neighbor’s—­
  Out from her hen—­yes, I stole!

“Once at the harvest at home I did linger—­
  Swore I was deadly sick,—­when
Taking my part in the drunken carousals
  Saturday night with the men!

“Light was I ever with soldiers!  Yet cursing
  God’s name, when from me at last,—­
My own son they took for a soldier! 
  Even drank cream on a fast.

“Woe to me sinner!  Woe to me wretched one! 
  Woe!  My heart broken will be! 
Holy Madonna, have pity, have mercy! 
  Into court go not with me!”

NEKRASSOW.

The stoves of the peasants are built so that they can sleep on top of them in the extreme cold of Winter.

TO RUSSIA

’Neath a giant tent
Of the heavens blue,
Stretch the verdant Steppes;
Range beyond the view.

On the distant rim
Lift the outlines proud,
Of their mountain walls
To the drifting cloud.

Through the Steppes there rolls
Stream on stream to sea,
Wide meandering,
Straying far and free.

Do I Southward gaze—­
Like the ocean there,
Ripening fields of grain
Wave and ripple fair.

Softest velvet sod
Decks the meadow floor,
In the vineyards green
Swells the grape once more.

Do I Northward turn—­
O’er the waste lands lone,
Soft as eider down
Are the snowflakes blown.

And his azure waves
High the ocean lifts,
On his cold blue breast
Now an iceberg drifts.

And as leaping flame
Burn the Northern lights,
On the darkness gleam
Through the silent nights.

Even so art thou,
Russian realm, become,—­
Thou my native land,
Shield of Christendom!

Far away hast thou,
Throughout lands untold,
In thy glory fair,
Russia, been enrolled!

Art thou not in space
E’en o’er well supplied? 
Where a spirit bold
Freely wanders wide!

Hast thou not alway
Gold and grain rich stored? 
For thy friend a feast? 
For thy foe a sword?

Guards and shields thee not
With a sacred might,
Holy altar forms,
Deeds of glory bright?

To whom hast thou e’er
Bent an humble knee? 
Or before whom bowed
Seeking charity?

In the Kurgan deep,
Met in open fight,
Thou hast e’en subdued
The fierce Tartar’s might.

Fought to bloody death
The Lithuanian horde,
The defiant Pole
Scattered with a sword.

And how long ago,
Black clouds, rising out
Of the distant West,
Compassed thee about?