1.
Hagia Sofia -- here to stop and stare
The Lord has ordered people and the tsars!
Your dome, as an eyewitness once described it,
As if by chains is hanging from the stars.
2.
To all a shining light -- age of Justinian,
When to steal off for foreign gods unseen
Dedicated Diana the Ephesian
Hundred and seven marble columns green.
3.
To what aspired your generous creator,
When high in spirit and in reason blessed,
He laid your features on the ground
And pointed them directions east and west?
4.
The temple shines, in the world's aura bathing,
And forty windows -- triumph of the light;
On sails under the dome the four archangels
Finest of all and basking in delight.
5.
This building will outlast people and ages
So wise and spherical and nobly built
And incandescent weeping of the angels
Will not corrode away the darkened gilt.

By Osip Mandelshtam
Translated by Ilya Shambat
https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)

1.
Hagia Sofia -- here to stop and stare
The Lord has ordered people and the tsars!
Your dome, as an eyewitness once described it,
As if by chains is hanging from the stars.
2.
To all a shining light -- age of Justinian,
When to steal off for foreign gods unseen
Dedicated Diana the Ephesian
Hundred and seven marble columns green.
3.
To what aspired your generous creator,
When high in spirit and in reason blessed,
He laid your features on the ground
And pointed them directions east and west?
4.
The temple shines, in the world's aura bathing,
And forty windows -- triumph of the light;
On sails under the dome the four archangels
Finest of all and basking in delight.
5.
This building will outlast people and ages
So wise and spherical and nobly built
And incandescent weeping of the angels
Will not corrode away the darkened gilt.

By Osip Mandelshtam
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat
https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)