Classic Poem

'To All the Stepsons of the Native Land'

Transfiguration's light descends
Upon the fleeting hour and age, –
The seer's trance has been fulfilled,
And mighty anguish comes to pass!

The freeman's Plow, and not the dull
Yoke – slave of years now dead and gone,
Has turned the dark glebe's slumbrous clods, –
To heaven blooms the flower of earth.

The flame of life is unconfined!
Another bound, another step,
And the far distant Promised Land
Will be revealed without a bourn.

Ascending to the realm of space,
The strength of hands set free lifts up
The sun's face in the sun – bright cup
In shrine, whose light is circling stars.

Dispelled the gloom of life oppressed,
She, crucified in days gone by,
Rus', at this Easter Morning – song,
Chants loud her universal psalm!