To the Czar

TO THE CZAR.

Joaquin Miller

own from her high estate she slept,
A maiden, gently born,
And by the icy Volga kept
Sad watch, and waited morn;
Aud peasants say that where she slept
The new moon dipt her horn.
Yet on and on, through shoreless snows,
Far tow'rd the bleak north pole,
The foulest wrong the good God knows
Rolled as dark rivers roll;
While never once for all their woes
Upspake your ruthless soul.
She toiled, she taught the peasant, taught
The dark-eyed Tartar. He,
Illumined with her lofty thought,
Rose up and sought to be,
What God at the creation wrought,
A man! God-like and free.
Yet still before him yawned the black
Siberian mines! And oh ;
The knout upon the bare white back!
The blood upon the snow!
The gaunt wolves, close upon the track,
Fought o'er the fallen so!
And this that one might wear a crown
Snatched from a strangled sire!
And this that two might mock or frown,
From high thrones climbing higher—
From where the Parricide looked down
With harlot in desire!
Yet on, beneath the great north star,
Like some lost, living thing,
That long dread line stretched, black and far
Till buried by death's wing!
And great men praised the goodly Czar—
But God sat pitying.
* * * * * *
A storm burst forth! From out the storm
The clean, red lightning leapt,
And lo, a prostrate royal form....
And Alexander slept!
Down through the snow, all smoking, warm
Like any blood, his crept.
Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead!
One red spot in the snow
For one long damning line of red,
Where exiles endless go—
The babe at breast, the mother s head
Bowed down, and dying so.
And did a woman do this deed?
Then build her scaffold high,
That all may on her forehead read
The martyr's right to die!
Ring Cossack round on royal steed!
Now lift her to the sky!
But see! From out the black hood shines
A light few look upon!
Lorn exiles, see, from dark, deep mines.
A star at burst of dawn!....
A thud! A creak of hangman's lines!—
A frail shape jerked and drawn!....
The Czar is dead; the woman dead,
About her neck a cord.
In God's house rests his royal head—
Her's in a place abhorred;
Yet I had rather have her bed
Than thine, most royal lord!
Aye, rather be that woman dead,
Than thee, dead-living Czar,
To hide in dread, with both hands red,
Behind great bolt and bar....
You may control to the North Pole,
But God still guides the star.

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