IN Siberia's wastes <br />The ice-wind's breath <br />Woundeth like the toothed steel; <br />Lost Siberia doth reveal <br />Only blight and death. <br /> <br />Blight and death alone. <br />No Summer shines. <br />Night is interblent with Day. <br />In Siberia's wastes alway <br />The blood blackens, the heart pines. <br /> <br />In Siberia's wastes <br />No tears are shed, <br />For they freeze within the brain. <br />Nought is felt but dullest pain, <br />Pain acute, yet dead; <br /> <br />Pain as in a dream, <br />When years go by <br />Funeral-paced, yet fugitive, <br />When man lives, and doth not live. <br />Doth not live - nor die. <br /> <br />In Siberia's wastes <br />Are sands and rocks <br />Nothing blooms of green or soft, <br />But the snow-peaks rise aloft <br />And the gaunt ice-blocks. <br /> <br />And the exile there <br />Is one with those; <br />They are part, and lie is part, <br />For the sands are in his heart, <br />And the killing snows. <br /> <br />Therefore, in those wastes <br />None curse the Czar. <br />Each man's tongue is cloven by <br />The North Blast, that heweth nigh <br />With sharp scymitar. <br /> <br />And such doom each sees, <br />Till, hunger-gnawn, <br />And cold-slain, he at length sinks there, <br />Yet scarce more a corpse than ere <br />His last breath was drawn.<br /><br />James Clarence Mangan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/siberia/
