Holy Russia.

Crouched in the terrible land, The circle of pitiless ice, With frozen bloody feet And her pestilential summer's Fever-throb in her brow, Look, in her deep slow eyes The mists of her sleep of faith Stir, and a gleam of light, The ray of a blood-red sun, Beams out into the dusk. From far away, from the west, From the east, from the south, there come Faint sweet breaths of the breeze Of plenteous warmth and light. And she moves, and around her neck She feels the iron-scaled Snake Whose fangs suck at the heart Hid by her tattered dress, By her lean and hanging teat. Russia, O land of faith, O realm of the ageless Slav, O oppressed one of eternity, This darkest hour is the hour, The hour of the coming dawn! Europe the rank, the corrupt, Lies stretched out at your feet. Turkey, India, lo all, East and south, it is yours!

Years, years ago a nation, Oppressed as you are oppressed, Burst her bonds and leaped out, A volcanic sea-wave of fire, Quenched at last but in blood, Though not before the red spray Dashed the Pyramids, the Escurial, Rome and your own grey Kremlin. That was the great sea-wave Of a nation that disbelieved, Of a nation that had not faith! What shall the sea-wave be Of this race of eternal belief, This nation of a passionate faith?

PERE-LA-CHAISE. (Paris.)

I stood in Pere-la-Chaise. The putrid city, Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay, The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity, Flashing her bare shame to the summer's day.

Here where I stand, they slew you, brothers, whom Hell's wrongs unutterable had made as mad. The rifle-shots re-echoed in his tomb, The gilded scoundrel's who had been so glad.

O Morny, O blood-sucker of thy race! O brain, O hand that wrought out empire that The lust in one for power, for tinsel place, Might rest; one lecher's hungry heart grow fat,--

Is it for nothing, now and evermore, O you whose sin in life had death in ease, The murder of your victims beats the door Wherein your careless carrion lies at peace?

AUX TERNES. (Paris.)

SHE.--"Up and down, up and down, From early eve to early day. Life is quicker in the town; When you've leisure, anyway!

"Down and up, down and up! O will no one stop and speak? I would really like to sup, And my limbs are heavy and weak.

"What's my price, sir? I'm no Jew. If with me you wish to sleep, 'Tis five francs, sir. Surely you Will admit that that is cheap?"

HE.--"Christ, if you are not stone blind, Stone deaf also, you know it is Christian towns leave far behind Sodom and those other cities.

"Bid your Father strike this town, Wipe it utterly away! Weary, hungry, up and down From early eve to early day?

"Magdalen knew nought like this; She had food and roof above; Seven devils, too, did she possess; This poor soul had but one--love!

"O my sister, take me, kill me! I am one of those who once Only cared to feast and fill me On these robbed and murdered ones.

"Kill me? Nay, but love me; listen. I have too a gospel word, Fit to make still, dull eyes glisten, And, like Christ's, it brings a sword!

"No, Christ is not deaf nor blind; He's but dust in Syrian ground, And his Father has declined To a parson's phrase, a sound.

"Not by such, then, but by us These hell-wrongs must be redressed. Take this morsel venomous; Nourish it within your breast.

"You must live on, live and hate; Conquer wrath, despair and pain; For "we bid you hope" and wait Till the Red Flag flies again:

"Till once more the people rise, Once more, once and only once, Blood-red hands and blazing eyes Of the robbed and murdered ones!

"So good night, dear desperate heart. (Nay, 'tis sun-bright day we keep.) Soon we meet, though now we part. Kiss me . . . Take it . . . Go and sleep!"