TO THE SLANDERERS OF RUSSIA - Pushkin, 1831

Why rave ye, babblers, so? Ye lords of popular wonder?
Why such anathemas ‘gainst Russia do you thunder?
What moves your idle rage? Is’t Poland’s fallen pride?
‘T is but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending,
A question which, be sure, YOU never can decide.

Leave us! Your eyes are all unable
To read our history’s bloody table;
Strange in your sight and dark must be
Our springs of household enmity.
To you the Kreml and Praga’s tower
Are voiceless all, you mark the fate
And daring of the battle-hour
And UNDERSTAND US not, but HATE.

What stirs ye?
Is it that THIS nation,
On Moscow’s flaming walls, blood-slaked and ruin-quench’d,
Spurned back the insolent dictation
Of him before whose nod YE blenched?

Ye’re bold of tongue - but hark, would ye in deed but try it
Or is the hero, now reclined in laureled quiet,
Too WEAK to fix once more, Izmail’s red bayonet?
Or hath the Russian Tsar ever, in vain commanded?
Or must we meet all Europe banded?
Have we forgot to conquer yet?

Then send your numbers without number,
Your maddened sons, your goaded slaves,
In Russia’s plains there’s room to slumber,
And well they’ll know their brethren’s graves.