Alexander III
The world in mourning for a Russian Tsar!
A despot of the nineteenth century
Mourned by the nations that have made men free!
Ye captives of his rule! where'er ye be,
Whether in dungeons or in mines afar—
Wretches who mourn, yet mourn not for the Tsar,—
Forgive the tears that seem a wrong to grief
Barren of comfort and without relief!—
The Tsar was Russia's martyr,—as ye are!
He asked for peace, and she ordained him strife.
A Slav of simple heart, disliking show,
She bade him every lowly hope forego;
And placing on his brow her crown of woe,
Gave him a sovereignty with perils rife,
And 'neath his sceptre hid the assassin's knife.
So, masked as Fear, she broke his nerves of steel
Upon the circle of her racking wheel,
And set a horror at his door of life!
Humanity but sorrows for her own;
The Autocrat she mourns not, but the man,
Who, loving Russia, lived beneath her ban,
Powerless to soften fate or change the plan
That called him all unwilling to a throne,
Hereditary evils to atone.
She mourns not Cæsar, but the pathos old
Of a quick conscience, driven to uphold
A dynasty the world had long outgrown.
Woe to the Tsar!—Livadia's cannon boom,
Proclaiming that the Tsar from woe is free!
Peace to the Tsar! but, Russia, woe to thee!
Still he who rules thee shall thy victim be,
Tortured by griefs that shall his heart consume,
Till he and thou, risen as from the tomb,
Shall see the light on Liberty's calm face,
Shall know that tyranny must yield its place
To the great spirit that hath breathed its doom!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Related quotes
Batuschka
[Author's Note: The title means "little father" or "dear little father", a term of endearment applied to the Tsar in Russian folk-song. --T.B.A.]
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 horrer of their sleep,
As if some dæmon in his glee
Were mocking at their misery--
"God save the Tsar!"
In his Red Palace over there,
Wakeful, he needs must hear the prayer.
How can it drown the broken cries
Wrung from his children's agonies?--
"God save the Tsar!"
Father they called him from of old--
Batuschka! . . . How his heart is cold!
Wait till a million scourgëd men
Rise in their awful might, and then
God save the Tsar!
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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A Russian Tale
The tsar our little father had grown old, very old. Now he could not even strangle a dove with his own hands. Sitting on his throne he was golden and frigid. Only his beard grew, down to the floor and farther.
Then someone else ruled, it was not known who. Curious folk peeped into the palace windows but Krivonosov screened the windows with gibbets. Thus only the hanged saw anything.
In the end the tsar our little father died for good. The bells rang and rang, yet they did not bring his body out. Our tsar had grown into the throne. The legs of the throne had become all mixed up with the legs of the tsar. His arm and the armrest were one. It was impossible to tear him loose. And to bury the tsar along with the golden throne - what a shame.
poem by Zbigniew Herbert
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When the Tsar sins the Empire must do penance.
He who serves the Tsar cannot serve his people.
Death carries on its shoulders a heavy Tsar just as easily as a light beggar.
Your body belongs to the Tsar, your soul to God, and your back to the squire.
A drop of water in the eyes of the Tsar costs the country many handkerchiefs.
I am not yet ready to be Tsar. I know nothing of the business of ruling.
quote by Nicholas II
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A cross-eyed Tsar, one-eyed ministers, blind subjects.
Rasputin
The Tsarevitch lay moaning,
He was dying in his bed,
The bleeding wouldn't stop,
It turned the little fellow's head,
When somewhere through the darkness
Where a peasant dared not roam,
A bearded monk came lumbering in
And headed for the throne!
He had some mystic power, this monk,
Worked miracles, somehow,
And Alexandra wept to see
Her son, so peaceful now,
The Tsar was more than overwhelmed,
Invited him to court,
This Grigori Yefimovich,
The healer they had sought!
Each time the haemophilia
Brought young Alexis low,
Rasputin, by his bedside
Would appear to stem the flow,
They saw him as a holy man,
The women, hypnotised,
They met with him in secret,
Raised their skirts, and spread their thighs.
He revelled in the scandals
And he bragged of them in court,
And even Alexandra
Was the subject of his sport,
The Tsar went off to fight the war
And left them all behind,
Rasputin with his mistresses;
They say that love is blind!
The nobles, they all hated him
His fame, and loving arts,
They needed to be rid of him,
Black murder in their hearts,
Prince Yusupov invited him
To visit at his home,
Then fed him poisoned cakes and wine,
And left him there alone!
The poison didn't seem to take,
The monk was quite immune,
The plotters there had panicked
When they came back in the room,
The prince took his revolver
And he aimed it at his heart,
Rasputin fell back dead - or so they thought;
It was a start!
He lay across the table as
The wine spilt on the floor,
Prince Yusupov bent over him,
He didn't seem to stir;
But then Rasputin lunged at him
And grabbed him by the throat,
And Yusupov cried out: ‘Will no-one
Free me from this oaf? '
Rasputin staggered to the door,
Another shot rang out,
Purishkevich had waited
‘Til he heard the prince's shout,
They rolled him in a sheet, and then
They heard Rasputin groan,
As they dropped him through the ice
Into the Neva, where he drowned!
He was buried at the palace
On the orders of the Tsar,
But the revolution came,
And saw Rasputin disinterred,
When they tried to burn the body
They were shocked to see him writhe,
Try to sit up in the flames…
As if Rasputin was alive!
21 May 2012
poem by David Lewis Paget
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A Fairy Tale of Sorts
There once was a flower who learned how to think
evolving to harness it's best chance of life
no visible brain and no definite link
to show how or when it fell on its own knife.
For as it evolved it saw chances to rest
relying on beauty for its future seed,
as man, captivated this plant at its best
and so cultivated this true prize indeed.
As the flower developed it petals and sheen
increasingly moving away from its roots
no nectar was needed, no insects were seen
as man took his cuttings, they worked in cahoots.
Till one day the flower changed one stroke too far
assuming the men would attend,
so just as the fate of the Tsaress and Tsar,
the strings of their genes met a quite abrupt end.
poem by Hola Mentirosa
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Devastated
I can hear the beats of drums afar
The voices of war so loud
without out the melody of a guitar
As dust of battle redden the cloud
A fight that will leave behind only scars
Cos the warriors are not at par
It is not a children’s blazer
It is a fight like the war of the tsar
Only the ground will bear the rot
As the crushing sun and the dreadful night
Brings the pain of lost ones gone
For only the dead have seen the end of war
poem by Jesuroboowie Gift Imafidon
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Lara
Doctor Zhivago (Russian) is a 1965 epic drama-romance-war film directed by David Lean and loosely based on the famous novel of the same name by Boris Pasternak. It has remained popular for decades, and as of 2010 is the eighth highest grossing film of all time in the United States, adjusted for inflation.
The film takes place mostly during 1912-1923, against a backdropp of World War I, the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, as the regime of Tsar Nicholas II is overthrown and the Soviet Union established. A narrative framing device, set in the late 1940s to early 1950s, involves KGB Lieutenant General Yevgraf Andreyevich Zhivago (Alec Guinness) searching for the illegitimate child of his half brother, doctor Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago (Omar Sharif) , and his mistress Larissa ('Lara') Antipova (Julie Christie) . Yevgraf believes a young woman working on a dam project, Tonya Komarovskaya (Rita Tushingham) may be his niece, and tells her the story of her father's life.
As the Mother Volga river runs to the Caspian Sea
My soul haunts Lara in the film Doctor Zhivago!
The biggest part of Russia, Siberia
The surface always frozen like Lara's heart?
I hear the fine theme song of Lara
And I search the missing book in my trunk
Boris Pasternak's longest prose.
Russian Alphabet is called Cyrillic
A man named Cyril is said to have invented it?
Anyway I think of Lenin, Trotsky, Dostoevsky
Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gogol and Pushkin.
And when I woke up in the morning
I found my grandson's picture book 'Russia' beside me
And I spoke to my Son-in-law
How about a Vodka tonight?
Spasiba!
nimal dunuhinga
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Fugue 2 / Song Of Daedalus
Call me cool as january
I walk like the breeze
And wear the world like filigree
Call me too large for life
Thats only sticks and stones
Im standing so tall
It seems that Ive grown
Call me irresponsible
Your rules of the game
Are only clouds to float above
Call me, lets do lunch
When I get time for girls
Im working on things
To astonish the world
Call me weird and laugh at me
I tell you its true
Ive found a cure for gravity
Call me mad as march
High as in hogmanay
Just watch me and weep
Im out of this maze
See the wings made of feathers, of wax and of thread
See me soar high above all the quick and the dead
Call me now
Call me stars and moon and plough
Call me lord, call me sire
Call me earth and wind and fire
Call me judge, call me shah
Call me king, call me tsar
Call me god
song performed by by Joe Jackson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Slave-Mother's Farewell
May God have mercy on thee, son, for man's stern heart hath none!
My gentle boy, my beautiful, my loved and only one!
I would the bitter tears that steep thy young and grief-doom'd head,
Were springing from a broken heart, that mourn'd thee with the dead.
And yet how often have I watch'd above thine infant sleep,
With love whose gushing tenderness strove vainly not to weep,
When starting through my timid heart, the thought that thou couldst die,
Shot, even amidst a mother's bliss, a pang of agony.
My boy! my boy! Oh cling not thus around me in thy grief,
Thy mother's arm, thy mother's love, can yield thee no relief;
The tiger's bloody jaw hath not a gripe more fierce and fell
Than that which tears thee from my arms—thou who wert loved so well!
How may I live bereft of thee? Thy smile was all that flung
A ray of gladness ‘midst the gloom, forever round me hung:
How may a mother's heart endure to think upon thy fate,
Thou doom'd to misery and chains!—so young and desolate!
Farewell! farewell!—They tear thee hence!—and yet my heart beats on;
How can it bear the weight of life, when thou art from me gone?
Mine own! mine own! Yet cruel hands have barter'd thee for gold,
And torn thee, with a ruthless grasp, forever from my hold!
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Irish Peasant to his Mistress
Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheer'd my way,
Till hope seem'd to bud from each thorn that round me lay;
The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burn'd,
Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turn'd;
Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free,
And bless'd even the sorrows that made me more dear to thee.
Thy rival was honour'd, while thou wert wrong'd and scorn'd,
Thy crown was of briers, while gold her brows adorn'd;
She woo'd me to temples, while thou lay'st hid in caves,
Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas! were slaves;
Yet cold in the earth, at thy feet, I would rather be,
Then wed what I loved not, or turn one thought from thee.
They slander thee sorely, who say thy vows are frail --
Hadst thou been a false one, thy cheek had look'd less pale.
They say, too, so long thou hast worn those lingering chains --
That deep in thy heart they have printed their servile stains --
Oh! foul is the slander -- no chain could that soul subdue --
Where shineth thy spirit, there liberty shineth too!
poem by Thomas Moore
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Fugue 2 / Song Of Daedalus (feat. Violin: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg)
[Solo Violin - Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
Vocal - Joe Jackson]
Call me cool as January
I walk like the breeze
And wear the world like filigree
Call me too large for life
That's only sticks and stones
I'm standing so tall
It seems that I've grown
Call me irresponsible
Your rules of the game
Are only clouds to float above
Call me, let's do lunch
When I get time for girls
I'm working on things
To astonish the world
Call me weird and laugh at me
I tell you it's true
I've found a cure for gravity
Call me mad as March
High as in Hogmanay
Just watch me and weep
I'm out of this maze
See the wings made of feathers,
of wax and of thread
See me soar high above
all the quick and the dead
Call me now
Call me Stars and Moon and Plough
Call me Lord, call me Sire
Call me Earth and Wind and Fire
Call me Judge, call me Shah
Call me King, call me Tsar
Call me God
song performed by by Joe Jackson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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