Page:Florence Earle Coates Poems 1898 52.jpg

 ALEXANDER III

(LIVADIA, NOVEMBER 1, 1894)

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!

52