Then when I drew it across the strings, the ocean-depths should resound
With the immense roar of thy hidden powers, and the waves
Should be mingled above in that graceful allurement of Nature
With which breezes rustle and birds carol,
And the vault of heaven should re-echo it to me a hundred-fold,
Uniting it all again in mighty harmony.
Then, O then only, were it mine to fashion
Such a song as is meet for the rapture and glory within thee,
Thy bygone years, thy greater years to come. Whither has thy girth
O mighty Slavdom, surged up? Like to an ocean,
The hand of God has poured thee out in earth's bosom, and although
Foreignness with many and many a gulf eats into thy soil,
Yet art thou still ample enough, that when thou but stirrest,
With any limb of thine, all the earth is aquiver.
The stranger stands, dismay in his eyes, his hands crossed,
Upon thy coasts, and thanklessly marvels at thee
And shudders with foreboding of terror. Wherefore is he affrighted?
O, from thy greatness an unswerving conscience metes out unto him
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