Classic Poem

Black night.
White snow.
The wind, the wind!
It will not let you go.
The wind, the wind!
Through God's whole world it blows.

The wind is weaving
The white snow.
Brother ice peeps from below.
Stumbling and tumbling,
Folk slip and fall.
God pity all!...

The wind lashes at the cross-roads
And the frost stings to the bone!
With his nose stuck in his collar
A bourgeois stands alone.

And who's this fellow tosses his long hair
And mutters with a mournful air:
" Renegades
Russia is dead " ?
One of those pen-pushing blades —
Gently bred.

Here's a frocked one, black and bulky,
Sidling like a beast.
Why so sulky,
Comrade priest?
You used to strut,
Do you recall,
Your belly with its pendent cross
Shining on one and all?

It is late.
One flickering lamp
In the street. A stooping tramp
Goes past with shuffling gait.
The shrill winds hiss.

" Come here,
Poor dear,
Give us a kiss. "
" Bread! "
" Oh, get ahead! "

Pitchy sky; no stars, no chart.
Hate, sorrowful hate,
Bursts the heart.
Black, holy hate.
Comrade,
Watch your gait.

2

The wind is a whirl, the snow is a dance.
In the night twelve men advance.

Black, narrow rifle-straps,
Cigarettes, tilted caps.

A convict's stripes would fit their backs.
Fires mark their nightly tracks.

Freedom, ekh, freedom —
Unhallowed, unblessed!
Trah-tah-tah! ...

Fires blaze upon their track.
Their rifle-straps are gleaming black.

March to the revolution's pace;
We've a fierce enemy to face.

More daring, friends, take aim, the lot!
At Holy Russia let's fire a shot.

At hutted Russia,
Fat-rumped and solid,
Russia, the stolid!

Ekh, ekh, unhallowed, unblessed. . . .

9

The city's roar is far away,
Black silence broods on Neva's brink.
No more police! We can be gay,
Comrades, without a drop to drink.

A bourgeois, a lonely mourner,
His nose tucked in his ragged fur,
Stands lost and idle on the corner,
Tagged by a cringing, mangy cur.

The bourgeois like a hungry mongrel, —
A silent question, — stands and begs;
The old world like a kinless mongrel
Stands there, its tail between its legs. . . .

11

And the twelve, unblessed, uncaring,
Still go marching on,
Ripe for death and daring,
Pitying none.

On with rifles lifted
At the hidden enemy.
Through deaf alleys where the snow is sifted,
Where the lonely tempest tosses free.
Onward, where the snow has drifted
Clutching at the marcher's knee.

The red flag
Flaunts in their faces.

Steady beat
Their sounding paces.

Grimly followed
Are their traces.

Ruthlessly the storm-wind smites
Days and nights.

Forward, forward, the thundering beat
Of the workers' marching feet!

12

Onward as a haughty host they march.
Ho! Who else is there? Come out!
Only wind, wind bellying the flag,
Tossing the red flag about.

On ahead a snowdrift towers sheer.
Who is hiding in the drift? Come out!
A starving mongrel shambles in the rear,
Limping off as though he feared a clout.

" Skip! Or I'll prick your mangy fur
With this tickling bayonet!
The old world is a mongrel cur. . . .
Beatings are the best you'll get. "

Teeth keen-gleaming in a hungry grin,
Furtively he follows on behind.
The mongrel has nor kith nor kin ...
" Hey! Who goes there? Answer quickly, mind!

Who's waving the red flag? You cannot see
In the darkness, through the blinding snow.
There is some one stirring stealthily
In the shadows, secretly and slow.

We will get you and your comrades too!
Best surrender while you're breathing still,
Comrade ... it will be the worse for you.
Come! or else we'll shoot to kill. "

Crrack-crack-crack! But solitary
Echo answers, from the houses thrown,
While the storm-wind, wild and merry,
Laughs among the snows alone.

Crrack-crack-crack!
Crrrack-crack-crack!

Forward as a haughty host they tread,
A hungry mongrel shambles in the rear.
Bearing forth the banner's windy red,
Where the vagrant snow-veils veer,
In dim hands no bullets sear,
On the tempest gently thrown,
Like a snow of diamonds blown
In mist-white roses garlanded —
Christ marches on. And twelve are led.