This page has been validated.
THE RUSSIAN REVIEW
3
To Russia.
By Alexander Blok.
Translated by P. Leonov.
Endless stretches the railroad before me,
On through windy steppe, rolling around.
Lo! A factory rearing her stories,
Towns of huts, where poor workers abound.
On her wild, broad expanses, my Russia,
Now the same, and now different, seems.
For she turns a new face now upon me,
And my mind throbs with quick-changing dreams.
From the grim underground—a Messiah—
The black coal comes, thy bride-groom and king.
But no terror in me, O my Russia,
Strike the voices that songs of stone sing!
'Tis the groan of the coal and the marshes,
And the groan of the ore, near and far:
For I see o'er the boundless steppe rising
Lo! Another America's star!
