THE AUTOCRAT'S ANTHEM.
For Law and Ruth, and Faith and Truth,
With my jackboot's heel I'll spurn 'em!
March, my Cossacks, o'er the Pruth,
Non confundar in æternum!
Hot with blood-drouth from North and South,
Let my grim field-batteries thunder
Chorus from each iron mouth,
In æternum non confundar!
No laurels grow in Russian snow,
Southwards I must look to earn 'em
By cheating friend and robbing foe—
Non confundar in æternum!
Rich Jassy's plain I want for grain,
Bucharest I want for plunder;
I've knouts for all who dare complain—
In æternum non confundar!
What treaties make for me, I take,
What against me make, I burn 'em;
I burrow where I cannot break—
Non confundar in æternum!
With half the West in neutral rest,
T'other half in active blunder
('Tis hard to say which serves me best)—
In æternum non confundar!
Count Nesselrode my rights has showed;
Who to ridicule dares turn 'em?
I but claim debts most clearly owed—
Non confundar in æternum!
A new crusade I preach to aid
Christians by vile Turks kept under,
Whom I'd convert by cannonade—
In æternum non confundar!
Peter the Great left words of weight
(All of Romanzoff race learn 'em),
Foreshadowing Russia's glorious fate;
(Non confundar in æternum!)
Which is to be Suzerain in fee,
O'er all Europe's tracts, that sunder
The Baltic from the Euxine Sea.
(In æternum non confundar!)
Me it doth irk, to see the Turk,
(Abeit mox in infernum!)
Set himself against this Holy Work—
(Non confundar in æternum!)
Check with a lath a torrent's wrath,
If it sweep you off what wonder?
Such is the Turk who'd stop my path—
In æternum non confundar!
Finland is ours; Denmark our powers,
Or has learnt, or soon shall learn 'em;
Poland beneath our Eagle cowers,—
(Non confundar in æternum!)
The Euxine's gates are Russian straits;
(Thanks to English heads so dunder)
By us choked up the Danube waits—
In æturnum non confundar!
Who checks my course? Use fraud and force—
Bribe 'em—beat 'em—brand 'em—burn 'em!
The Russian's God knows no remorse,
(Non confundar in æternum!)
Forth with the sword, the knout, the cord,
Hang, and scourge, and hew asunder!
With rites like these while I'm adored—
In æturnum non confundar!