A WATCH-DOG OF ENGLAND
Where the Russian Bear stirs blindly in the leash of a mailéd hand, Bright in the frozen sunshine, the domes of Moscow stand,
Scarlet and blue and crimson, blazing across the snow As they did in the Days of Terror, three hundred years ago.
Courtiers bending before him, envoys from near and far, Sat in his Hall of Audience Ivan the Terrible Tsar,
(He of the knout and torture, poison and sword and flame) Yet unafraid before him the English envoy came.
And he was Sir Jeremy Bowes, born of that golden time When in the soil of Conquest blossomed the flower of Rhyme.
Dauntless he fronted the Presence,—and the courtiers whispered low, "Doth Elizabeth send us madmen, to tempt the torture so?"
"Have you heard of that foolhardy Frenchman?" Ivan the Terrible said,— "He came before me covered,—I nailed his hat to his head."