CROUCHED in the terrible land, <br />The circle of pitiless ice, <br />With frozen bloody feet <br />And her pestilential summer's <br />Fever-throb in her brow, <br />Look, in her deep slow eyes <br />The mists of her sleep of faith <br />Stir, and a gleam of light, <br />The ray of a blood-red sun, <br />Beams out into the dusk. <br />From far away, from the west, <br />From the east, from the south, there come <br />Faint sweet breaths of the breeze <br />Of plenteous warmth and light. <br />And she moves, and around her neck <br />She feels the iron-scaled Snake <br />Whose fangs suck at the heart <br />Hid by her tattered dress, <br />By her lean and hanging teat. <br />Russia, O land of Faith, <br />O realm of the ageless Slav, <br />O oppressed one of eternity, <br />This darkest hour is the hour, <br />The hour of the coming dawn! <br />Europe, the rank, the corrupt, <br />Lies stretched out at your feet. <br />Turkey, India, lo all, <br />East and south, it is yours! <br />Years, years ago a Nation, <br />Oppressed as you are oppressed, <br />Burst her bonds and leaped out, <br />A volcanic sea-wave of fire, <br />Quenched at last but in blood, <br />Though not before the red spray <br />Dashed the Pyramids, the Escurial, <br />Rome, and your own grey Kremlin. <br />That was the great sea-wave <br />Of a nation that disbelieved, <br />Of a nation that had not faith! <br />What shall the sea-wave be, <br />Of this race of eternal belief, <br />This nation of passionate faith!<br /><br />Francis William Lauderdale Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/holy-russia/
