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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.

Moscow

Moscow Bells

By Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923)

THAT distant chime! As soft it swells,

What memories o’er me steal!

Again I hear the Moscow bells

Across the moorland peal!

The bells that rock the Kremlin tower

Like a strong wind, to and fro,—

Silver sweet in its topmost bower,

And the thunder’s boom below.

They say that oft at Easter dawn

When all the world is fair,

God’s angels out of heaven are drawn

To list the music there.

And while the rose-clouds with the breeze

Drift onward,—like a dream,

High in the ether’s pearly seas

Their radiant faces gleam.

O, when some Merlin with his spells

A new delight would bring,

Say: I will hear the Moscow bells

Across the moorland ring!

The bells that rock the Kremlin tower

Like a strong wind, to and fro,—

Silver sweet in its topmost bower,

And the thunder’s boom below!