Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.
Emancipation of the Serfs
By Hezekiah Butterworth (1839–1905)A
Your voice on the March air fling!
Ring, bells, on the Volga and Dwina,
Ring, bells, on the Caspian, ring!
O Tzar of the North, Alexander,
Thy justice to those that were least
Now girds thee with strength of the victor,
And makes thee the lord of the East!
And, o’er the wastes of snow,
From the crystal sky of winter
The lamps of God hung low.
A sea of ice was the Neva,
In the white light of the stars,
And it locked its arms in silence
Round the city of the Tzars.
And, dark in the starlit space,
The monolith rose before it
From its battle-trophied base.
And the cross that crowned the column
Seemed reaching to the stars,
O’er the white streets, wrapped in silence,
Round the palace of the Tzars.
Are flushed with a sullen light;
Who comes to the sacred altar
In the silence of the night?
What prince with a deep heart-burden
Approaches the altar’s stair,
To take the wine and the wafer,
And bow for the help of prayer?
Shall make the Russias free
From the Neva to the Ural,
From the Steppe to the winter sea;
Who speaks, and a thousand steeples
Ring freedom to every man,—
From the serf on the white Ladoga
To the fisher of Astrakhan.
O, faith in Eternal Love!
O, faith that looked up to heaven
The promise of ages to prove!
The cross and the crown gleam above him;
He raises his brow from prayer,
The cross of humanity’s martyr
Or crown of the hero to wear.
Slept the fisher of Astrakhan,
Nor dreamed that the bells of the morning
Would ring in his rights as a man.
He saw not night’s crystal gates open
To hosts singing carols on high,
He knew not a Bethlehem glory
Would break with the morn in the sky!
In the snows of the turret and spire,
And shone the far sea of the Finland
A sea of glass mingled with fire.
The Old Guard encircled the palace
With questioning look on each cheek,
And waited the word that the ukase
To the zone-girded empire should speak.
Each serf in the Russias is free!
Ring, bells, on the Neva and Volga,
Ring, bells, on the Caspian Sea!
O Tzar of the North, Alexander,
Thy justice to those that were least
Shall gird thee with strength of the victor,
Shall make thee the lord of the East.
Your voice on the March air fling!
Ring, bells, on the Volga and Dwina,
Ring, bells, on the Caspian, ring!
Thy triumphs of peace, Alexander,
Outshine all thy triumphs of war,
And thou at God’s altar wert grander
Than throned as the conquering Tzar!