The storm of 1812 descended a Who was our rock here, who our rod?

Was it the rage the people vented?

Winter, Barclay4 or Russia's G.o.d?

4.

But G.o.d did help a murmurs abated, And, shortly, by the force of things, In Paris we had congregated And Russia's Tsar was king of kings.5 .............................................

5.

And as he fattened,6 life grew heavier, O you, our stupid Russian folk, Say, why for G.o.d's sake did you ever .............................................

6.

Maybe, O shibboleth of the nation, I'll dedicate an ode to you, It seems, though, in antic.i.p.ation A high-born rhymester's done it, too.7 .............................................

To Albion the seas are granted8 .............................................

7.

Maybe the fraud,9 his rents forgetting, Will move into a monastery, Maybe Tsar Nicholas, regretting, Will set Siberia's captives free10 .............................................

Maybe they will repair the highways .............................................

8.

This man of fate, through wars progressing, Before whom Europe's kings would fawn, This horseman, crowned with papal blessing, Gone like a shadow of the dawn, .............................................

Exhausted on the rack of leisure11

9.

The Pyrenees shook with foreboding, Naples' volcano was astir, The one-armed prince was up and nodding From Kishinev to the Morea.

L's dagger... B's shadow12

10.

I'll curb all comers with my people. a Our Tsar said in the congress hall, .............................................

And does not give a d.a.m.n about you, You're Alexander's menial.13

11.

Toy regiment of Peter-t.i.tan, A guard of old mustachios, Whose fake protection of a tyrant Betrayed him to his deadly foes.14

12.

Russia again returned to quietness, Still more the Tsar went revelling, But sparks of quite another brightness, Perhaps a long time smouldering,15 .............................................

13.

Foregathering at private meetings, Over a Russian vodka, wine, They would, reciprocating greetings,16 .............................................

14.

Grandiloquent and trenchant pleaders, This group of friends would congregate At either turbulent Nikita's Or cautious Ilya's to debate.17 .............................................

15.

Mars, Bacchus, Venus were his pleasures: Here Lunin with audacity Put forward his decisive measures,18 And muttered in a reverie.

Noels were brought and read by Pushkin,19 While melancholical Yakushkin,20 Had silently, it seemed, laid bare A dagger meant to slay the Tsar.

With only Russia in his vision, Pursuing his ideal, the lame Turgenev21 hearkened to their aim And, hating slavery's oppression, Predicted that this n.o.ble folk Would free the peasants from their yoke.

1622.

All this on the Neva, iced over; But where much sooner shines the spring On Kamenka23 in shady cover And on the hilltops of Tul'chin,24 Where Wittgenstein's detachments quartered, On plains by the Dnieper watered And on the steppeland of the Bug, These things took on a different look.

There Pestel25... for the tyrants, And a cool-headed general26 Gathered supporters to his call, And Muryavyov,27 to him inclining, Hastened with strength and boldness to See the uprising carried through.

17.

At first, these plots, initiated 'Twixt a Lafitte and a Cliquot28 Were in a friendly tone debated And the rebellious science was slow To kindle a defiant pa.s.sion, All this was mere ennui and fashion, The idleness of youthful minds, Games that a grown-up scamp designs, It seemed...

But gradually...

From cell to cell...