Create an REXML element from a string

I need to create an XML element, which looks like:

<node>
  <subnode attrib=1>no</subnode>
  <subnode attrib=2>no</subnode>
  ...
</node>

To insert it into XML document. I can do that via:

node = Element.new("node")
subnode1 = Element.new("subnode")
subnode1.add_attributes("attrib", "1")
subnode1.add_text("no")
node.add_element(subnode1)
...

But it is rather uncomfortable. How could I just load an XML Element from string?

Is there something like:

my_element = <<EOF
<node>
  <subnode attrib=1>no</subnode>
  <subnode attrib=2>no</subnode>
</node>
EOF

node = Element.load(my_element)