O’er the aged features,
  O’er the dying form,
O’er the two small children
  On the stove bench warm.

Sudden, through the stillness
  Rings a merry cry—­
And his jingling troika
  Drives a reveller by!

Dies in silent distance
  Sleighbell clangor strong,
And the careless, merry,
  Sorrow-troubling song.

NIKITIN.

THE BIRCH TREE

From bald and sun-parched earth it rises,
  One lonely birch, high towering—­
Upon its withered crown wide spreading,
  Green leafage never more will sing.

Up to the rim of the horizon
  Where veiling mists all soft enclose,
Runneth the blossoming of flowers,
  The Steppe’s green ocean waving flows.

In green enchantment stands the Kurgan,
  Where evening dampness doth enfold,
The night descends with sleep and coolness,
  The morning sunbeams touch with gold.

Yet loveless, helpless stands the birch tree—­
  In heaven’s grey, musing sad to view,
And from its branches fall like tear-drops
  The gleaming pearls of morning dew.

Scattered, alas! her tender leaflets,
  In howling storms,—­so far, so wide! 
Ne’er will the birch, to greet the Springtide,
  Be fresh adorned in leafy pride!

NIKITIN.

NORTH AND SOUTH

Knowest thou the land of fragrance ardent glowing? 
Where night sublimely sparkles on the flowing
Of the sea?  Murmuring in starlight gleam—­
Weaving about the heart a wonder dream? 
Refulgent in the silvering moonbeams white,
In soft half darkness, gardens slumbering light;
Only the fountain’s iridescent foam
Upon the grass falls splashing down—­
And images of Gods with lips of silence
Sunk in deep musing gaze on every side—­
While, eloquent of fallen majesty,
Ruins entwined with ivy tendrils be? 
Soft pictured on the valley’s verdant meadows
Dark cypress trees reflect their slender shadows;
Earth’s bosom blooming in fecundity—­
And freedom here man’s joyful destiny.

Yet more than tropic’s soft abundance thralling,
My stormy North-land wilderness is calling! 
Her snowflake flocks, her gleaming midnight frosts,
The glory of grim forests on her coasts,
Green tinted Steppes with distant bluish rim—­
The trooping clouds in heaven’s spaces dim. 
Unto the heart how the familiar cries! 
The village mean that in the valley lies,
The wealthy cities’ towering majesty,
The empty snow-fields’ endless boundary,—­
The changeful moods that all unbridled throng;
Spirit of Russia and of Russian song! 
With joy now gushing forth,—­with pain now ringing—­
Unto the hearer’s heart resistless singing.

Thou fairest picture! my breast with rapture sighs,
My spirits free, victorious arise! 
A song breaks forth to Russia’s praise and glory,
And tears of joy, the while I muse, are flowing. 
And jubilant the kindling heart must cry—­
Hail Russia, Hail!  Thy loyal son am I!