I would be remiss if I did not provide an extract from Pushkin's
Medni Vsadnik (The Bronze Horseman)
I love thee, Peter's own creation,
I love thy stern and comely face,
Neva's majestic perfluctation,
Her embankments' granite carapace,
The patterns laced by iron railing,
And of thy meditative night
The lucent dusk, the moonless paling;
When in my room I read and write
Lampless, and street on street stand dreaming,
Vast luminous gulfs, and, slimly gleaming,
The Admiralty's needle bright;
And rather than let darkness smother
The lustrous heavens' golden light,
One twilight glow speeds on the other
To grant but half an hour to night.
I love thy winter's fierce embraces
That leave the air all chilled and hushed,
The sleighs by broad Neva, girls' faces
More brightly than the roses flushed,
The ballroom's sparkle, noise, and chatter,
And at the bachelor rendezvous
The foaming beakers' hiss and spatter,
The flaming punch's flickering blue.
I love the verve of drilling duty
Upon the playing fields of Mars,
Where troops of riflemen and horse
Turn massed precision into beauty,
Where laureled flags in tatters stream
Above formations finely junctured,
And brazen helmets sway and gleam,
In storied battles scarred and punctured.
I love, war-queen, thy fortress pieces
In smoke and thunder booming forth
When the imperial spouse increases
The sovereign lineage of the North,
Or when their muzzles roar in token
Of one more Russian victory,
Or scenting spring, Neva with glee,
Her ice-blue armor newly broken,
In sparkling flows runs out to sea.
Thrive, Peter's city, flaunt thy beauty,
Stand like unshaken Russia fast,
Till floods and storms from chafing duty
May turn to peace with thee at last;
The very tides of Finland's deep
Their long-pent rancor then may bury,
And cease with feckless spite to harry
Czar Peter's everlasting sleep.
