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: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)