Smashing the vice-like blockade, Tossing the splinters sky-high, Over boundary, wall and stockade Forward, red rider, fly! Through insults, affronts and reproofs Hostile murmur and hate Echo, triumphant hooves, Over a world prostrate. Blow after blow you deal To the decrepit age-old walls, While, merciless, far and near The tattoo of your horseshoes rolls. Dauntless, forward you leapt, And the dust, disturbed, rose high. But now with time it has set And opened the dawn-tinged sky. Everyone -- purblind and prophet -- Turning eastward his eyes, In Berlin, New York, and Paris, Your fiery progress descries. With joy or with oaths of hatred The globe beholds in surprise The red silhouette of the Kremlin Against the morning skies. |