Dost thou see on the rampart’s height
That wreath of mist, in the light
Of the midnight moon?  O, hist! 
It is not a wreath of mist;
It is the Czar, the White Czar,
    Batyushka!  Gosudar!

He has heard, among the dead,
The artillery roll o’erhead;
The drums and the tramp of feet
Of his soldiery in the street;
He is awake! the White Czar,
    Batyushka!  Gosudar!

He has heard in the grave the cries
Of his people:  “Awake! arise!”
He has rent the gold brocade
Whereof his shroud was made;
He is risen! the White Czar,
    Batyushka!  Gosudar!

From the Volga and the Don
He has led his armies on,
Over river and morass,
Over desert and mountain pass;
The Czar, the Orthodox Czar,
    Batyushka!  Gosudar!

He looks from the mountain-chain
Toward the seas, that cleave in twain
The continents; his hand
Points southward o’er the land
Of Roumili!  O Czar,
   Batyushka!  Gosudar!

And the words break from his lips: 
“I am the builder of ships,
And my ships shall sail these seas
To the Pillars of Hercules! 
I say it; the White Czar,
    Batyushka!  Gosudar!

“The Bosphorus shall be free;
It shall make room for me;
And the gates of its water-streets
Be unbarred before my fleets. 
I say it; the White Czar,
    Batyushka!  Gosudar!

“And the Christian shall no more
Be crushed, as heretofore,
Beneath thine iron rule,
O Sultan of Istamboul! 
I swear it; I the Czar,
    Batyushka!  Gosudar!”

DELIA

Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,
When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,
Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,
But never will be sung to us again,
Is thy remembrance.  Now the hour of rest
Hath come to thee.  Sleep, darling; it is best.

ULTIMA THULE

DEDICATION

TO G.W.G.

With favoring winds, o’er sunlit seas,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.

How far, since then, the ocean streams
Have swept us from that land of dreams,
That land of fiction and of truth,
The lost Atlantis of our youth!

Whither, oh, whither?  Are not these
The tempest-haunted Hebrides,
Where sea gulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?

Ultima Thule!  Utmost Isle! 
Here in thy harbors for a while
We lower our sails; a while we rest
From the unending, endless quest.

POEMS

BAYARD TAYLOR

Dead he lay among his books! 
The peace of God was in his looks.

As the statues in the gloom
Watch o’er Maximilian’s tomb,