Your whole life long you spent reciting:
—Down, fathers! —Up, the sons!
Not so, Good Sire, All-High-and-Mighty,
All-Dream-Dispensing-One!

Not for your sons you toiled—you set up
The Devils' shining hour!—
Tsar-Carpenter, who never let up
Though sweat poured from your brow.

Without you—peasants would be hauling
Their snow-bound sleds today.
But your last scion would not have fallen
At some halt far away.(1)

If you, head bent, had never levied
Those toy boats—you 'd have saved
Your holy Rus from being buried
Without a decent grave.

It's you set up this seething cauldron—
You, stacked and stoked the coals!
Sire of the Soviets—you—upholder
Of Ceremonial Balls!

Sire of the rubble—it's your doing—
These monasteries in flames!
Your legendary city's ruin-
It's your hand that's to blame!

You squandered free, high-handed, careless—
You, handicraftsman-Sire!
Your last descendant's blood lies squarely
On your head, mutineer!

No more your crackpot ventures!
Spare them! The—sister—waits her hour...
—Down, Internationale! —Up, terem!
—Down, Peter! —Vive Sophia!

August 1920

1 In Moscow at that time it was thought that the Tsar had
been shot at some outlying station in the Urals.