TO ENGLAND

(when English journalists joked on Russia’s disasters)

I

How long, oh Lord, shall war and strife be rolled

On the God‑breathing breast of slumbering man,

Horrible nightmares in the doubtful span

Of his sleep blind to heaven? As of old,

Shall we, more wise, in frantic joy behold

The bloody fall of nation and of clan,

And ever others' woes with rough glee scan,

And war’s dark names in Glory's charts inscrolled?

We now that in vile joy our egoist fears

Behold dispelled, one day shall mourn the more

That blood of men erased them‑bitter tears

Of desolated woe, as wept of yore

(Yet not for the short space of ten long years)

The Grecian archer on the Lemnian shore.

II

Our enemies are fallen; other hands

Than ours have struck them, and our joy is great

To know that now at length our fears abate

From hurt and menace on great Eastern lands.

Bardling, scribbler and artist, servile bands,

From covert sneer outsigh their trembling hate,

Laughing at misery, and woe, and fal]en state,

Armies of men whole‑crushed on desolate strands.

The fallen lion every ass can kick,

That in his life, shamed to unmotioned fright,

His every move with eyes askance did trace.

I’ll scorn beseems us, men for war and trick,

Whose groanings nation poured her fullest might

To take the freedom of a former [?] race.