RUSSIA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4412, 10 May 1922, Page 1

RUSSIA.

(For the Triad.) By Coralie Stanley McKeMjar. “ After the red pptage cometh the exceeding bitter 'cry.” Yon have banished your, holy Ikon And stripped your women bare ; You have purpled your desert steppes With, frightfulness everywhere. Your youth has bled in the markets, Your babes lie snug with the dead, Your voices that cried as a people ‘Arc muttering low for bread ! (It’s well to lie in a land like this Where I,aws are kept and where ' ' ’ . naught’s amiss !) You have crimsoned the sullen Volga I With tears from a million eyes ; I You have strangled the piteous whimpers And alughed at your virgin’s cries ; j You have reeked in the stench of con- . victe Herded in cattle pens ; You have drunken, the blood of your manhood As you wallowed in filthy dens. (We’re clean, thank God, in this land of, ours ! Pure and sweet as the morning flowers.) You raised your hands to the Heavens And crashed your foreheads to earth ! You ran with, the tide of fury And smothered restraint at birth ! Where fools and their follies mated : You lurked as the byways lay; And tapped the streets at the dead of night, Ashamed of the gaze of day. (It’s food to read what the papers tell— A famine, a priest, and a passing bell.) You fled your dreams down the valleys To the bottomless mouth of Hell; You crushed, your heel on compassion, And spat on the dead as ‘they fell! Like beasts you have torn ami trampled Till your throats were a scarlet rage ; You bared your breasts to the onslaught / As you stood on your broken stage. (The scene, is vivid, the play is true ! Not that it matters to me and you.) We hear no more of your troika bells, Your grand cathedrals, your art; Your fields of wheat and your priceless mines! Or the poets who Jay on your heart; But artists have wielded your brjisn, And songsters have wailed your hymn! You stand outcast on the brink of night. Unclothed on the jnidrnintg’s rim! (And all is summer and summer skies, Likely as not each paper lies !’ You have silenced your peasant forest And stripped the secrets from Death ! Bleeding you lie as the vultures lie Hissing your foetid breath; With the eyes of the world indifferent Your millions must starve and die, And who shall judge 'of your doings As stricken and gaunt you lie ? (Extremists of course must pass away! Dead to-morrpw though born to-day). And yet, we a'che for your pitiful babes. With their tragic outstretched hands ; We yearn for your women whose bitter mouths Whisper to toher lands. Wf. sorrow for you with your wounds scars, And the desolate eyes of you there ; The dust of ashes is on your tongue And clogged is the blood in your hair. (These subjects are better, left alone. Let us stop our ears to this ceaseless moan!) The tears of! your Holy Ikon Drip, drip with a sickening thud, And the prayers of your Holy Ikon Are drowned in rivers of blood”, Your women and men stand starkly Awaiting the new born day, Where your red. flag dips in its sunset As the world looks the other way. (We’ve plenty of trivial troubles and cares, Why worry, with Russia’s sordid ... affairs ?)