Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79. | | | | Volga, the River | | Farewell to the Volga | | Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923) |
| | | FAREWELL, O River of the Plain, | |
| O River of the Sea! | |
| Fain would I follow to the main | |
| Thy current strong and free; | |
| And find, beyond thy reedy islands, | 5 |
| The sullen Caspian’s ocean silence. | |
| |
| The Kalmuck girls with braided hair, | |
| And cap of scarlet crown, | |
| Beside their tents, in evening fair, | |
| Will watch thy tide go down; | 10 |
| And songs of the steppe and its rovers sing, | |
| Their swarthy lovers listening. | |
| |
| And Kirghis, dark with desert suns, | |
| Will halt beside thy brink, | |
| While the steed, the brackish spring that shuns, | 15 |
| Stoops low, thy wave to drink; | |
| Then, fresh and fleet as at dawn of day, | |
| Over the plain they ’ll haste away. | |
| |
| Farewell. I feel the west-wind blow; | |
| The Asian dream is o’er; | 20 |
| And Europe ’s in the sunset glow, | |
| That gilds thy sandy shore. | |
| I go where other streams will shine, | |
| But none so lone, so grand as thine. | | | | |
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