Alexander II.

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)

Assassinated by the Nihilists in St. Petersburg on March 13, 1881.

FROM him did forty million serfs, endowed

Each with six feet of death-due soil, receive

Rich freeborn lifelong land, whereon to sheave

Their country’s harvest. These to-day aloud

Demand of Heaven a Father’s blood,—sore bowed

With tears and thrilled with wrath; who, while they grieve,

On every guilty head would fain achieve

All torment by his edicts disallowed.

He stayed the knout’s red-ravening fangs; and first

Of Russian traitors, his own murderers go

White to the tomb. While he,—laid foully low

With limbs red-rent, with festering brain which erst

Killed kingly freedom,—’gainst the deed accurst

To God bears witness of his people’s woe.