Grief-hallow'd Russia, free! O myriad-eyed,
Gazing on Io — the world's pulsing heart!
Girded and glowing with thy truth thou art
A pillar of fiery cloud, a voice, a guide,
A joy, a challenge, a white dream come true!
(Drinking a cup of hemlock for Truth's sake,
I, an American, spurn'd and rejected,
Stabb'd and imprison'd by war-madden'd savages,
Here in my prison in the heart of America,
Watching and waiting, with joy I salute thee!)
Deep upon deep, old tyranny and wrong
Lay heavy on thine ardent tortured breast
As lie dead dunes on living forests press'd
By cruel winds of Time; until a song —
A vast sob rose that brake the world in two!
(Hearken, America! How you are out of tune!
Majestic music sweeps about the globe,
You sound like wolf-hide tom-toms beat at night,
Bloodthirsty and bloodguilty ... You are sick, —
Drugg'd with your pious plutocratic rage!)
A cry! a will! a deed that toppled wrong! —
And challenged chaos in the passionate birth
Of the bravest and most deathless thing on earth —
A new idea, a truth ripe for the throng,
A flame to lead men from the Wilderness!
(And you, my Country? Blinded, bought, betray'd,
Quixotic, rich and fatuous, — you have sinn'd!
Great Russia was your friend once in your need
And you in hers have stabb'd her! ... You will weep
As wept Niobe for her slaughter'd sons!)
A broad highway to Freedom hewn at last
Through nameless horrors by a nation's best! —
From Hertzen to " Babushka " and the rest;
Dreaming and dying heroes of the past —
Yours the glory, ours the gain till Time shall cease!
(Aye, weep for shame, my Country, that your name
Was so dishonor'd! . . And he who most has sinn'd —
Does he apologize? Nay, then I speak!
Here from my red-wall'd prison I implore
Forgiveness, Russia, for my country's crime!)
From Moscow to Samara and Irkutsk,
From Astrakhan to Buda leaps the fire!
Worldward the course of Freedom's new desire
Thrills, unimpeded by the guile of brutes, —
Bright with her oriflamme of Victory!
(Let the old Tiger and the glutted Lion
And that smooth-lisping Buzzard pick the bones
Of slaughter'd empires and prate of peace!
What matter if they gain the world and lose
That which without they perish utterly?)
Toll, Kolokol! Ring out the knell of war,
Of ignorance and poverty and crime!
Ring in forever from the bourne of Time
Man's conquest of himself and of his star, —
His first mind-wrought, mind-ruled Fraternity!
(Free Russia victrix! Build thy temple true, —
Thy workers' lives its stones, their dreams its jewels,
Their love its glory and their strength its throne!
Thou lost a world and gain'd, reborn, a soul; —
God grant thou gain the world too for the Dream!)
Gazing on Io — the world's pulsing heart!
Girded and glowing with thy truth thou art
A pillar of fiery cloud, a voice, a guide,
A joy, a challenge, a white dream come true!
(Drinking a cup of hemlock for Truth's sake,
I, an American, spurn'd and rejected,
Stabb'd and imprison'd by war-madden'd savages,
Here in my prison in the heart of America,
Watching and waiting, with joy I salute thee!)
Deep upon deep, old tyranny and wrong
Lay heavy on thine ardent tortured breast
As lie dead dunes on living forests press'd
By cruel winds of Time; until a song —
A vast sob rose that brake the world in two!
(Hearken, America! How you are out of tune!
Majestic music sweeps about the globe,
You sound like wolf-hide tom-toms beat at night,
Bloodthirsty and bloodguilty ... You are sick, —
Drugg'd with your pious plutocratic rage!)
A cry! a will! a deed that toppled wrong! —
And challenged chaos in the passionate birth
Of the bravest and most deathless thing on earth —
A new idea, a truth ripe for the throng,
A flame to lead men from the Wilderness!
(And you, my Country? Blinded, bought, betray'd,
Quixotic, rich and fatuous, — you have sinn'd!
Great Russia was your friend once in your need
And you in hers have stabb'd her! ... You will weep
As wept Niobe for her slaughter'd sons!)
A broad highway to Freedom hewn at last
Through nameless horrors by a nation's best! —
From Hertzen to " Babushka " and the rest;
Dreaming and dying heroes of the past —
Yours the glory, ours the gain till Time shall cease!
(Aye, weep for shame, my Country, that your name
Was so dishonor'd! . . And he who most has sinn'd —
Does he apologize? Nay, then I speak!
Here from my red-wall'd prison I implore
Forgiveness, Russia, for my country's crime!)
From Moscow to Samara and Irkutsk,
From Astrakhan to Buda leaps the fire!
Worldward the course of Freedom's new desire
Thrills, unimpeded by the guile of brutes, —
Bright with her oriflamme of Victory!
(Let the old Tiger and the glutted Lion
And that smooth-lisping Buzzard pick the bones
Of slaughter'd empires and prate of peace!
What matter if they gain the world and lose
That which without they perish utterly?)
Toll, Kolokol! Ring out the knell of war,
Of ignorance and poverty and crime!
Ring in forever from the bourne of Time
Man's conquest of himself and of his star, —
His first mind-wrought, mind-ruled Fraternity!
(Free Russia victrix! Build thy temple true, —
Thy workers' lives its stones, their dreams its jewels,
Their love its glory and their strength its throne!
Thou lost a world and gain'd, reborn, a soul; —
God grant thou gain the world too for the Dream!)