You Russian poets must write your lines in blood
For often that is all that is left to you
By invaders, revolutionaries, and
“The briefcase politician in his jeep” 1

Perhaps every Russian is a Pushkin
In frost and heat, in every deprivation
Plowing in the face of the enemy
Building civilization with frozen hands

And always shaping noble tetrameters
Into an eternal song of a Russian spring

1 Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”