Classic Poem

Why rave ye, babblers, so — ye lords of popular wonder?
Why such anathemas 'gainst Russia do you thunder?
What moves your idle rage? Is 't Poland's fallen pride?
'T is but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending,
A question which, be sure, ye never can decide.
For ages past still have contended
These races, though so near allied:
And oft 'neath Victory's storm has bended
Now Poland's, and now Russia's side.
Which shall stand fast in such commotion,
The haughty Pole, or faithful Russ?
And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean —
Or that dry up? This is point for us.

Peace, peace! your eyes are all unable
To read our history's bloody table;
Strange in your sight and dark must be
Our springs of household enmity!
To you the Kreml and Praga's tower
Are voiceless all, — you mark the fate
And daring of the battle-hour, —
And understand us not, but hate — —

What stirs ye? Is it that this nation
On Moscow's flaming wall, blood-slaked and ruin-quenched,
Spurned back the insolent dictation
Of Him before whose nod ye blenched?
Is it that into dust we shattered
The Dagon that weighed down the earth so wearily?
And our best blood so freely scattered
To buy for Europe peace and liberty?

Ye 're bold of tongue — but hard, would ye in deed but try it.
Or is the hero, now reclined in laurelled quiet,
Too weak to fix once more Izmail's red bayonet?
Or hath the Russian Tsar ever in vain commanded?
Or must we meet all Europe banded?
Have we forgot to conquer yet?
Or rather, shall they not, from Perm to Tauris' fountains,
From the hot Colchian steppes to Finland's icy mountains,
From the grey Kreml's half-shattered wall,
To far Kathay, in dotage buried, —
A steely rampart close and serried,
Rise, Russia's warriors, one and all?
Then send your numbers without number,
Your maddened sons, your goaded slaves,
In Russia's plains there 's room to slumber,
And well they 'll know their brethren's graves!