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- Land of the Martyrs -- of the martyred dead
- And martyred living -- now of noble fame!
- Long wert thou saddest of the nations, wed
- To Sorrow as the fire to the flame.
- Not yet relentless History had writ of Teuton shame.
- Thou knewest all the gloom of hope deferred.
- "Twixt God and Russia wrong had built such bar
- Each by the other could no more be heard.
- Seen through the cloud, the child's familiar star,
- That once made Heaven near, had made it seem more far.
- Land of the Breaking Dawn! No more look back
- To that long night that nevermore can be:
- The sunless dungeon and the exile's track.
- To the world's dreams of terror let it flee,
- To gentle April cruel March is now antiquity.
- Yet -- of the Past, one sacred relic save:
- That boundary-post 'twixt Russia and Despair, --
- Set where the dead might look upon his grave, --
- Kissed by him with his last-breathed Russian air.
- Keep it to witness to the world what heroes still may dare.
- Land of New Hope, no more the minor key,
- No more the songs of exile long and lone;
- Thy tears henceforth be tears of memory.
- Sing, with the joy the joyless would have known
- Who for this visioned happiness so gladly gave their own.
- Land of the warm heart and the friendly hand,
- Strike the free chord; no more the muted strings!
- Forever let the equal record stand --
- A thousand winters for this Spring of Springs,
- That to a warring world, through thee, millennial longing brings.
- On thy white tablets, cleansed of royal stain,
- What message to the future mayst thou write! --
- The People's Law, the bulwark of their reign,
- And vigilant Liberty, of ancient might,
- And Brotherhood, that can alone lead to the loftiest height.
- Take, then, our hearts' rejoicing overflow,
- Thou new-born daughter of Democracy,
- Whose coming sets the expectant earth aglow.
- Soon the glad skies thy proud new flag shall see,
- And hear thy chanted hymns of hope for Russia new and free.
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