On The Death Of Catharine Ii[100]

Empress of all the Russias

Confusion to that iron sway Which bids the brute, not man, obey, And dooms him to Siberian soil, Chains, whips, and vassalage, and toil.

This female wolf, whom wolves did nurse, So long of polar worlds the curse, This Catharine, skill'd in royal arts, To the dark world at last departs.

In style, the second of her name, She to the crown by treason came; To Peter, drowsy, royal drone, She gave a prison for a throne.

She would have sent her Tartar bands To waste and ravage gallic lands, She would have sent her legions o'er, Columbia! to invade your shore!--

But, even in conquest, she foresaw Destruction to despotic law; She fear'd, in hordes returning home, That liberty would with them come.

She fear'd the savage from the den Would see and learn the rights of men; And hence, in time, destruction bring To hell's vicegerents--queen and king.

No thanks to her! she fear'd her beasts, Enslaved by kings, enslaved by priests, Even if all freedom they o'er ran, Would learn the dignity of man;

And kept them home, and held them there, Oppression's iron reign to bear; And never meet a beam of light, Involved in worse than Zembla's night.

Now she is dead, and Paul will rise As fierce as she, but not as wise; He may his barbarous millions send, He may the fall of France intend;

But they who see with keener eye Will see them faint, will see them fly; With hostile step will see them come To turn their backs, or meet their doom.

From the edition of 1815. Catharine II died November 6, 1796.