Classic Poem

Ivan Sings Again — To France and England

From the White Sea to the Black Sea, from Okhotsk to Helsingfors,
From the Baltic to [Port Arthur], from the Tartar to the Norse,
I am marching to the Danube where I sunk your monitors.

From the centuries of serfdom and of hunger, fear and pain,
Where the blinding snow is whirling, or we face the freezing rain —
And across our frozen marshes we are marching out again.

Not for conquest am I marching, nor with vengeful flags unfurled;
Where the frozen limbs seem burning and the fires of Hate are hurled;
But I come with Art and Letters that shall shame the Western World!

You had taught, my gallant Ally, while your skies were bright and gay —
You, who, like my simple children, won to Freedom in a day —
While I learned, in pain and terror, under skies of sullen grey.

Greece had many a stately college with its towers amongst the trees;
But the hunger-haunted cellars and the fens of refugees,
And the grim mines of Siberia were my Universities.

And our football grounds were shambles where my legions died to win
From the danger of Invasion all that I hold dear within —
Grimly died with sad eyes sadder than the sad eyes of a Finn.

Wrong that England never dreamed of! Terror always at my throat —
Wrong the Finnish artist painted! Wrong the Russian writer wrote! —
Only war and only murder — only Death the antidote!

At my meeting serf and noble, gathered at a student's word —
Peasant girl and Grand Duke's daughter, by the soldier-workman stirred,
Clenched hands and bared heads when Marie Spiridonova's name was heard!

Tyrants ruled to their destruction and a workman wore the crown,
And the workman's son, a tyrant, crushed his father's people down.
So he perished like a weakling. Then a president — and clown.

As of old the tyrants perish, and a slave comes to the throne.
And his son — a greater tyrant — crushes down and starves his own,
Just to perish like a weakling. So the seeds of Time are sown.

'Tis the Great Law periodic. You have seen it all before;
'Tis the Great Law periodic till the stars shall be no more:
War, and war, and revolution — and then, after that, the War!