O Troitsa's altar is divine,—

Have you heard how Holy Russia Is guarded, night and day, By saints gone home to the world of light, Yet watching her realm for aye?

And the chants, and the groans of the dying, as one, Went up to the Lord when the carnage was done.

And there he reclines with the air of a god, As if armies and kingdoms would fall at his nod; On his brow the imperial borla is bound, Its crimson fringe drooping his temples around, And above float the plumes of that bird of the skies …

And Pole and Tartar and haughty Gaul Flee, dismayed, from the Kremlin wall.

Your King may be powerful—a brother I'll be— But vassal to none on the land or the sea!

Ah! what a day when all the way To Marmora's sunny sea— From Finland's snows to fields of rose— Shall Holy Russia be!