In vain the gales of ocean sweep, In vain the billows roar That chafe the wild and stormy steep Of storied Elsinore. She comes! She comes! her banners dip In Neva's flashing tide, With greetings on her cannon's lip, The storm-god's iron bride! Peace garlands with the olive-bough Her thunder-bearing tower, And plants before her cleaving prow The sea-foam's milk-white flower. No prairies heaped their garnered store To fill her sunless hold, Not rich Nevada's gleaming ore Its hidden caves infold, But lightly as the sea-bird swings She floats the depths above, A breath of flame to lend her wings, Her freight a people's love! When darkness hid the starry skies In war's long winter night, One ray still cheered our straining eyes, The far-off Northern light. And now the friendly rays return From lights that glow afar, Those clustered lamps of Heaven that burn Around the Western Star. A nation's love in tears and smiles We bear across the sea, O Neva of the banded isles, We moor our hearts in thee! WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS MUSIC HALL, DECEMBER 6, 1871 Sung to the Russian national air by the children of the public schools. SHADOWED so long by the storm-cloud of danger, Thou whom the prayers of an empire defend, Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a stranger, Come to the nation that calls thee its friend! Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December, Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow; Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember Who was our friend when the world was our foe. Look on the lips that are smiling to greet thee, See the fresh flowers that a people has strewn Count them thy sisters and brothers that meet thee; Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine own! Fires of the North, in eternal communion, Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star! God bless the Empire that loves the Great Union; Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar! AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS DECEMBER 9, 1871 ONE word to the guest we have gathered to greet! The echoes are longing that word to repeat,-- It springs to the lips that are waiting to part, For its syllables spell themselves first in the heart. Its accents may vary, its sound may be strange, But it bears a kind message that nothing can change; The dwellers by Neva its meaning can tell, For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full well. That word! How it gladdened the Pilgrim yore, As he stood in the snow on the desolate shore! When the shout of the sagamore startled his ear In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music to hear! Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire,-- The cabin, the corn-cake, the seat by the fire; He had nothing to give,--the poor lord of the land,-- But he gave him a WELCOME,--his heart in his hand! The tribe of the sachem has melted away, But the word that he spoke is remembered to-day, And the page that is red with the record of shame The tear-drops have whitened round Samoset's name.