Meanwhile he's dead, with scantiest laurel won
And little of our Nineteenth Century gold.
So, take him, Earth, and this his mortal part,
With that shrewd alchemy thou hast, transmute
To flower and leaf in thine unending Springs!




BATUSCHKA.<1>

From yonder gilded minaret
Beside the steel-blue Neva set,
I faintly catch, from time to time,
The sweet, aerial midnight chime--
"God save the Tsar!"

Above the ravelins and the moats
Of the white citadel it floats;
And men in dungeons far beneath
Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth--
"God save the Tsar!"

The soft reiterations sweep
Across the horror of their sleep,

<1> "Little Father," or "Dear Little Father,"
a term of endearment applied
to the Tsar in Russian folk-song.
As if some daemon in his glee