Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79. | | | | Azof | | The Storming of Azof | | From the Russian |
| | Translated by Mrs. T. A. L. Robinson
THE POOR soldiers have no rest, | |
| Neither night nor day! | |
| Late at evening the word was given | |
| To the soldiers gay; | |
| All night long their weapons cleaning, | 5 |
| Were the soldiers good, | |
| Ready in the morning dawn, | |
| All in ranks they stood. | |
| |
| Not a golden trumpet is it, | |
| That now sounds so clear: | 10 |
| Nor the silver flute’s tone is it, | |
| That thou now dost hear. | |
| ’T is the great white Tzar who speaketh, | |
| ’T is our father dear. | |
| Come, my princes, my Boyars, | 15 |
| Nobles, great and small! | |
| Now consider and invent | |
| Good advice, ye all! | |
| How the soonest, how the quickest, | |
| Fort Azof may fall? | 20 |
| |
| The Boyars, they stood in silence. | |
| And our father dear, | |
| He again began to speak, | |
| In his eye a tear: | |
| Come, my children, good dragoons, | 25 |
| And my soldiers all, | |
| Now consider and invent | |
| Brave advice, ye all, | |
| How the soonest, how the quickest, | |
| Fort Azof may fall? | 30 |
| |
| Like a humming swarm of bees, | |
| So the soldiers spake, | |
| With one voice at once they spake: | |
| “Father, dear, great Tzar! | |
| Fall it must! and all our lives | 35 |
| Thereon we gladly stake.” | |
| |
| Set already was the moon, | |
| Nearly past the night; | |
| To the storming on they marched, | |
| With the morning light; | 40 |
| To the fort with bulwarked towers | |
| And walls so strong and white. | |
| |
| Not great rocks they were, which rolled | |
| From the mountains steep; | |
| From the high, high walls there rolled | 45 |
| Foes into the deep. | |
| No white snow shines on the fields, | |
| All so white and bright; | |
| But the corpses of our foes | |
| Shine so bright and white. | 50 |
| Not up-swollen by heavy rains | |
| Left the sea its bed; | |
| No! in rills and rivers streams | |
| Turkish blood so red! | | | | |
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