Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.

Troitzka

Troitsa Monastery

By Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923)

O SACRED Troitsa! when the skies

Of morn are blue I lift my eyes

To see again in azure air

Thy starry domes and turrets fair,

And to hear from thy gray cathedral walls

The chanted hymn as it swells and falls.

Then with the pilgrim train I wait

And enter, glad, thy wide-flung gate,

To drink of St. Sergius’ holy well,

That heals the griefs no soul may tell,

Or kneel with them at his wondrous shrine,—

His staff and his simple robe beside,—

And trace on my breast the mystic sign,

And pray for the peace of the glorified!

Then fade thy towers; the music dies;

Above me are my native skies,

Blue and clear in the August morn,

Over the pines and the rustling corn,

With a song from brook and breeze and bird

Sweet as the hymn in thy cloisters heard,—

And I know the fields are a shrine as fair,

For the Lord of the saints is here as there!