 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
218
THE RUSSIAN WAR.
Where will it end?—Demolish what we mayOf forts and fleets and hecatombs of lives,
Nothing is done if Nicholas survives,
A Titan thrown but to renew the fray:
Scatheless in hostile victory's proudest day
Far off the solitary despot thrives;
And, ere we touch him, we must wade knee-deep
Through seas of servile but unguilty blood,
And, while our cannons to destruction sweep
Host after host of that serf-multitude,
He, in his malachite and golden pride,
Will neither heed home-woes nor foreign might,
But madly wilful thus will stand aside,
And watch secure the struggling millions fight.
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