Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.

Saint Petersburg

The Crown Jewels

By Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923)

EYE of a god was this blazing stone,

Beyond the snows of the Himalaya;

These dazzling stars might have lit the zone

Of the Queen of Jove or the Grace, Aglaia;

And the rubies are such as the Burman king

Sends his elephants white to bring,

With a troop of soldiers and high grandees

Greeting the finder, on bended knees.

Here ’s an emerald rare as the rose of pride

Cortez gave his Castilian bride,

And lustrous-green as the Indian gem

Charlemagne wore in his diadem;

And pearls hard-won by the Ceylonese

From the silent depths of the tropic seas,

While the conjurer muttered his spells ashore

Till the diver’s toils for the day were o’er;

And crystals, amber, and amethyst,

That only the Oural caves could harden,—

Bright as blossoms the sun has kissed

In the fairy plots of a palace garden.