Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.

February 18

The Dead Czar

By Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–1887)

The Czar Nicholas I., who died on Feb. 18, 1855, was the third son of Paul I. He succeeded his brother and died during the Crimean War.

LAY him beneath his snows,

The great Norse giant who in these last days

Troubled the nations. Gather decently

The imperial robes about him. ’Tis but a man,—

This demi-god. Or rather it was man,

And is—a little dust, that will corrupt

As fast as any nameless dust which sleeps

’Neath Alma’s grass or Balaklava’s vines.

No vineyard grave for him. No quiet tomb

By river margin, where across the seas

Children’s fond thoughts and women’s memories come

Like angels, to sit by the sepulchre,

Saying: “All these were men who knew to count,

Front-faced, the cost of honor, nor did shrink

From its full payment: coming here to die,

They died—like men.”

But this man? Ah! for him

Funereal state, and ceremonial grand,

The stone-engraved sarcophagus, and then

Oblivion.

Nay, oblivion were as bliss

To that fierce howl which rolls from land to land

Exulting,—“Art thou fallen Lucifer,

Son of the morning?” or condemning,—“Thus

Perish the wicked!” or blaspheming,—“Here

Lies our Belshazzar, our Sennacherib,

Our Pharaoh,—he whose heart God hardened,

So that he would not let the people go.”

Self-glorifying sinners! Why, this man

Was but like other men:—you, Levite small,

Who shut your saintly ears, and prate of hell

And heretics, because outside church-doors,

Your church-doors, congregations poor and small

Praise heaven in their own way;—you, autocrat

Of all the hamlets, who add field to field

And house to house, whose slavish children cower

Before your tyrant footstep;—you, foul-tongued

Fanatic and ambitious egotist,

Who thinks God stoops from His high majesty

To lay His finger on your puny head,

And crown it,—that you henceforth may parade

Your maggotship throughout the wondering world,—

“I am the Lord’s anointed!”

Fools and blind!

This Czar, this emperor, this disthroned corpse,

Lying so straightly in an icy calm

Grander than sovereignty, was but as ye;—

No better and no worse;—Heaven mend us all!

Carry him forth and bury him. Death’s peace

Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier

Sits silent, or says only these few words,—

“Let him who is without sin ’mongst ye all

Cast the first stone.”