(echoes of Stakhovich)

All blisters—but three centuries disown them!
No axe can change your hands' intrinsic grace!
Of all life's treasures, You, the most outspoken:
Breeding! —I recognize your face.

For all you wrestle with a rusty saucepan—
Your Versailles manners stay serene, intact.
It takes more than a peasant blouse to shorten
The lordly profile of your neck.

Bent over snow-mound, soot-heap from the chimney,
Your back, though arched, remains erect and proud!
You work, spurred by your nobleman's own whimsey
—And not to orders barked out loud.

And when, down in the old Arbat, you barter
A paltry herring for some fags—your nose
Betrays the gulf that separates the parties:
Yours—aquiline, and he—snub-nosed.

But should a child, in homage, once, grown weary
Of taking cash, hand you a flower—behold,
You'd kiss that tiny hand of hers, as surely
As the Tsarina's, once, of old.

July 1920