| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | March 13 | | Alexander II. | | By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) |
| | | | Assassinated by the Nihilists in St. Petersburg on March 13, 1881. |
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FROM him did forty million serfs, endowed | |
| Each with six feet of death-due soil, receive | |
| Rich freeborn lifelong land, whereon to sheave | |
| Their country’s harvest. These to-day aloud | |
| Demand of Heaven a Father’s blood,—sore bowed | 5 |
| With tears and thrilled with wrath; who, while they grieve, | |
| On every guilty head would fain achieve | |
| All torment by his edicts disallowed. | |
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| He stayed the knout’s red-ravening fangs; and first | |
| Of Russian traitors, his own murderers go | 10 |
| White to the tomb. While he,—laid foully low | |
| With limbs red-rent, with festering brain which erst | |
| Killed kingly freedom,—’gainst the deed accurst | |
| To God bears witness of his people’s woe. | | | |
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