I love thee, Peter's grand creation;
I love thy aspect fair and chaste;
The sovereign Neva’s bold progression;
Her banks, with stately granite faced;
The iron tracery of thy fences;
The crystal twilight of thy nights
Reflective, moonless their resplendence,
When lampless in my room I write
And read; and lucent are the slumbering
Colossi of the streets unnumbered,
Devoid of life, o’er whose repose
The Admiralty’s needle glows;
And, letting not bleak darkness bother
The golden heavens' blissful light,
One dawn makes haste to chase another,
With half an hour left for night.
Alexander Pushkin
Translated by Natalia Kharag.