O sacred Troitsa! when the skies
Of morn are blue, I lift my eyes
To see again, in azure air,
Thy starry domes and turrets fair,
And to hear from thy gray cathedral walls
The chanted hymn as it swells and falls.
Then with the pilgrim train I wait,
And enter, glad, thy wide-flung gate,
To drink of St. Sergius' holy well
That heals the griefs no soul may tell;
Or kneel with them at his wondrous shrine,—
His staff and his simple robe beside,—
And trace on my breast the mystic sign,
And pray for the peace of the glorified!
Then fade thy towers; the music dies;
Above me are my native skies,
Blue and clear in the August morn,
Over the pines and the rustling corn;
With a song from brook and breeze and bird
Sweet as the hymn in thy cloisters heard,—
And I know the fields are a shrine as fair,
For the Lord of the saints is here, as there!