| |
| FROM far Siberia’s frozen plains, | |
| They cry to heaven, they cry to us! | |
| We hear the clanking of their chains | |
| And turn away! Not thus, not thus, | |
| Our fathers, were your hearts made cold | 5 |
| By lust of power, by greed of gold! | |
| |
| They have not feared the scaffold rope, | |
| Nor cringed for whip or knotted cord; | |
| They give up all and keep their hope; | |
| They die and call no despot lord; | 10 |
| Before the heaven that made men free, | |
| They testify for liberty. | |
| |
| Who gave their tyrants leave to smite | |
| Truth’s witnesses with knout or rod? | |
| Who says such wrongs are in heaven’s right, | 15 |
| He lives before the throne of God, | |
| And all the blood by despots shed, | |
| Shall be a curse upon his head! | |
| |
| If to our altar one should come, | |
| With the czar’s hounds upon his track, | 20 |
| Could e’en our buried dead be dumb | |
| Were we so base to drive him back, | |
| Were we such craven, venal slaves, | |
| Among our myriad hero-graves? | |
| |
