What mean these angry cries, haranguers of the mob?
And wherefore hurl your curses at poor Russia's head?
And what has stirred your rage? Our Lietva's discontent?
Your wrangling cease, and let the Slavs arrange their feud:
It is an old domestic strife, the legacy
Of ages past, a quarrel you can ne'er decide.
Already long among themselves
These tribes have fought and weaved intrigues;
And more than once, as fate has willed,
We, or they, have bent before the storm
But who shall victor end the feud,
The haughty Pole, or Russian true?
Shall streams Slavonic with Russian sea commingle,
Or leave it dry? That is the question.
Leave us in peace! You have not read
These sacred oracles of blood;
This fierce, domestic quarrel-feud
Seems to you both strange and senseless!
Kremlin, Praga, mean naught to you!
You mock and scorn as childish whim
The combat fierce we wage for life;
And more... 'tis nothing new... you hate us!
But why this hate? Nay, answer, why?
Is it because, when burning Moscow's ruins flamed,
We would not own his brutal rule,
Before whose nod you, humbled, crouched?
Because we rose and dashed to ground
The idol that so long had weighed the empires down,
And boldly with our blood redeemed
Lost Europe's honour, freedom, peace?

Your threats are loud; now, try and prove as loud in deed!
Think ye, the aged hero, sleeping in his bed,
No more has strength to wield the sword of Ismail?
Or that the word of Russian T'sar has weaker grown?
Or have we ne'er with Europe warred,
And lost the victor's cunning skill?
Or are we few? Erom shores of Perm to southern Tauris,
From Finnish cliffs of ice to fiery Colchis,
From Kremlin's battered battlements
As far as China's circling wall,
Not one shall fail his country's call!
Then send, assemblies of the West,
Your fiercest troops in full array!
In Russian plains we'll find them place
To sleep with those who fell before!