| |
From “In Russia”
DANCE, little children … it is holy twilight … | |
| Have you hung paper flowers about the necks of the ikons? | |
| Dance soft … but very gaily … on tip-toes like the snow. | |
| Spread your little pinafores | |
| And courtesy as the snow does … | 5 |
| The snow that bends this way and that | |
| In silent salutation. | |
| Do not wait to warm your hands about the fires. | |
| Do not mind the rough licking of the wind. | |
| Dance forth into the shaggy night that shakes itself upon you. | 10 |
| |
| Dance beneath the Kremlin towers—golden | |
| In the royal | |
| Purple of the sky— | |
| But not there where the light is strongest … | |
| Bright hair is dazzling in the light. | 15 |
| Dance in the dim violet places | |
| Where the snow throws out a faint lustre | |
| Like the lustre of dead faces … | |
| Snow downier than wild-geese feathers … | |
| Enough filling for five hundred pillows … | 20 |
| By the long deep trench of the dead. | |
| |
| Bend, little children, | |
| To the rhythm of the snow | |
| That undulates this way and that | |
| In silver spirals. | 25 |
| Cup your hands like tiny chalices … | |
| Let the flakes fill up the rosy | |
| Hollows of your palms | |
| And alight upon your hair, | |
| Like kisses that cling softly | 30 |
| A moment and let go … | |
| Like many kisses falling altogether … | |
| Quick … cool kisses. | |
| |
