THE WHITE CZAR

[In an English magazine of 1877 there appeared a version of some insolent lines addressed by "A Russian Poet to the Empress of India." To these the first of the two following sonnets was designed to serve by way of counterblast. The writer will scarcely be suspected of royalism or imperialism; but it seemed to him that an insult levelled by Muscovite lips at the ruler of England might perhaps be less unfitly than unofficially resented by an Englishman who was also a republican.]

I

Gehazi by the hue that chills thy cheek

And Pilate by the hue that sears thine hand

Whence all earth's waters cannot wash the brand

That signs thy soul a manslayer's though thou speak

All Christ, with lips most murderous and most meek—

Thou set thy foot where England's used to stand!

Thou reach thy rod forth over Indian land!

Slave of the slaves that call thee lord, and weak

As their foul tongues who praise thee! son of them

Whose presence put the snows and stars to shame

In centuries dead and damned that reek below

Curse‑consecrated, crowned with crime and flame,

To them that bare thee like them shalt thou go

Forth of man's life—a leper white as snow.

II

Call for clear water, wash thine hands, be clean,

Cry,

What is truth?

O Pilate; thou shalt know

Haply too soon, and gnash thy teeth for woe

Ere the outer darkness take thee round unseen

That hides the red ghosts of thy race obscene

Bound nine times round with hell's most dolorous flow,

And in its pools thy crownless head lie low

By his of Spain who dared an English queen

With half a world to hearten him for fight,

Till the wind gave his warriors and their might

To shipwreck and the corpse‑encumbered sea.

But thou, take heed, ere yet thy lips wax white,

Lest as it was with Philip so it be,

O white of name and red of hand, with thee.