Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.
The Neva
By Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)I
Beside the sweeping stream,
Wrapped in the summer midnight’s amber haze;
Serene the temples stand,
And sleep, on either hand,
The palace-fronts along the granite quays.
Above the sea-mist float,
The river-arms, dividing, hurry forth;
And Peter’s forest-spire,
A slender lance of fire,
Still sparkles back the splendor of the North.
Above the silent shores;
Dark from his rock the horseman hangs in air:
And down the watery line
The exiled Sphinxes pine
For Karnak’s morning in the mellow glare.
The restless current’s rush,
The Neva murmuring through his crystal zone:
A voice portentous, deep,
To charm a monarch’s sleep
With dreams of power resistless as his own.
Pure from the springs that break
In Valdaï vales the forest’s mossy floor,
Greener than beryl-stone
From fir-woods vast and lone,
In one full stream the braided currents pour.
Around my trembling isles,”
I hear the River’s scornful Genius say:
“Raise for eternal time
Your palaces sublime,
And flash your golden turrets in the day!
A mystery I hold,—
Of empires and of dynasties the fate:
I bend my haughty will,
Unchanged, unconquered still,
And smile to note your triumph: mine can wait.
As a strong man may bow
His sportive neck to meet a child’s command,
And curb the conscious power
That in one awful hour
Could whelm your halls and temples where they stand.
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.
To feel his little craft
Borne on my bosom round the marshy isles:
His daring dream to aid,
My chafing floods I laid,
And saw my shores transfixed with arrowy piles.
When other dreams shall sway
The House of Empire builded by my side,—
Dreams that already soar
From yonder palace-door,
And cast their wavering colors on my tide,—
Below the purple skies,
By waters blue, which winter never frets,—
Where trees of dusky green
From terraced gardens lean,
And shoot on high the reedy minarets.
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.
These visions from my face,
I see the starry phantom of a crown,
Beside whose blazing gold
This cheating pomp is cold,
A moment hover, as the veil drops down.
My streams forever free.
Swift as the wind, and silent as the snow,
The frost shall split each wall:
Your domes shall crack and fall:
My bolts of ice shall strike your barriers low!”
The morn’s descending fire
In thousand sparkles o’er the city fell:
Life’s rising murmur drowned
The Neva where he wound
Between his isles: he keeps his secret well.