Before the Emancipation of the Serfs.

To whom I like I mercy show,

And whom I like I kill;

My fist—my only constable,

My only law—my will.

A blow from which the sparkle flits,

A blow that knocks the teeth to bits,

A blow that breaks the jaw!

The mighty chain is snapped in twain,

Is snapped and bounds asunder.

The landlords clutch one broken end;

At t’other peasants blunder.

The fields remain unploughed and bare;

The seed is left unsown;

No trace of order anywhere,

O mother-land, our own!

Not for ourselves thus sorrow we;

We grieve, O native land, for thee!

Oh, true-believing peasantry!

Russia’s your mother small;

The Tsar’s your little father.

And that for you is all!

Then up there comes a veteran,

With medals on his breast;

He scarcely lives, but yet he strives

To drink with all the rest.

“A lucky man, am I,” he cries,

And thus to prove the fact he tries.

“In what consists a soldier’s luck?

Pray, listen while I tell.

In twenty fights, or more, I’ve been,

And yet I never fell.

And, what is more, in peaceful times

Full meal I never knew;

Yet, all the same, I have contrived

Not to give Death his due.

Again, for sins both great and small,

Full many a time they’ve me

With sticks unmercifully flogged,

Yet I’m alive, you see!”