IMPLACABLE as are thy arctic floes; <br /> Grim and gigantic as thy mountain height; <br /> Girt with thy pines for spindles and the light <br />Of pale auroras for thy stars; to those <br />Who know thee not thou seem’st as one who goes <br /> Unvex’d by Wrong, nor swerves to help the Right, <br /> A grey Lachesis of the Northern night, <br />Stark as thy steppes and colder than thy snows. <br /> <br />But we—we know thee now, Ally and Friend! <br /> True as thy Baltic Spars and tried by fire, <br /> Thy seeming coldness hides a courage high, <br /> A stern resolve to do, endure and die, <br /> So that the holy cause of thy desire— <br />Thy cause and ours—shall triumph in the end.<br /><br />Sydney Elliott Napier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/russia/
