Translation:The seven hills founded – like so many bells grounded!..
* * *
The seven hills founded – like so many bells grounded!
The seven bells are by many belfries surmounted
By the fourscore fourfold tally – unbounded, uncounted!
Ring clearly, prithee – my seven-hilly campanile!
I was born on a bell-ringing red-letter day –
On the day of John Godspell’s glory
In a neatly-hedged house made of gingerbread clay
In the view of the churches’ cupolae
And I loved – how I loved! – the swelling of bronze
When the nuns flocked and flowed to the service
The humming coal-stove and the hot midday doze
And that lore-woman, healing cows soreless …
The all-Moscow scum, the queer, sick and glum –
All you riff-raff, go on, see me off and around!
Oi, you priest, hear my song, silence me for long –
Stop my mouth with the Muscovite ground!