| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Stones for Russia | | By Baker Brownell |
| | | STONES we have, Russia, | |
| Stones to break your teeth, | |
| To batter shut your hunger-widened eyes; | |
| Stones and the silver stab of bayonets, | |
| The skilled jab, the clubbed gun | 5 |
| Of our northern-bred guards: these | |
| We have, Russia. A greeting, | |
| Russia, to you the groper | |
| Struggling out of the pit of centuries, | |
| Uprising from primeval death, groping | 10 |
| To a dazed, uncertain day; a greeting, | |
| Russia, drunken one, drunken with misery— | |
| A greeting with stones! | |
| |
| To you who have known only death till now, | |
| Russia, a welcome to new torture, | 15 |
| To life, to a mad fact of living; | |
| A welcome, Russia, lurching from death’s stupidity, | |
| From torpor, into tortured consciousness; welcome | |
| By this western people, stones and the butts of guns. | |
| Which do you wish? Which do you wish, | 20 |
| Russia, death or this resurrection? | |
| |
| Chosen people, chosen from the sad soil | |
| To clasp anguished visions where our bland blindness fails; | |
| Sufferer of earth’s anguish, of the profound fate of being, | |
| Finding in primeval murk, in dusky fires, truth. | 25 |
| Truth, mystic Russia, seeing, seeing! Here are stones. | |
| |
| Misery has wrought you, Russia. | |
| Your passion sweeps gigantic darkness | |
| Over our pagan bulbs, our cool illuminations, | |
| Our peace; and wreaks massive terror. Fear | 30 |
| Hurls our stones, Russia. | |
| Dark prophet with unkempt, terrible gesture, | |
| Envisioned folk, exponent of unknown fate, | |
| Where is your truth, truth beyond reason, taught you | |
| By misery, truth unseen to us, feared? | 35 |
| |
| Here are stones, miserable ones, | |
| Stones to quench your misery; brilliant steel, | |
| Delicately strong, cruel. A greeting, Russia! | | | | |
|
|
