Poems (Kennedy)/Madame Catherine Breshkovskaya
MME. CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKAYA
("Grandmother of the Russian Revolution" has spent 50 of her 74 years in prison)
YOU think—With needles glancing through the yarnOr stitching endlessly a seam In tender loyalty,Or that you bought a bond to helpLet loose the nation's golden stream—You think with these that you have done Your "bit" for Liberty?
Then what of her—Breshkovskaya—That broken, white-haired Russian dame Who, half a centuryGroveled in dungeons of her landBecause for Russia she dared claim,From scourging hand and iron heel, That same sweet Liberty?
Not hers to knit nor hers to sewFor those who guarded Russia's path To make her people free.Her youth went out in prison blight,Her soul was bruised with royal wrath,The suns and stars of fifty years She did not see.
And yet her courage never failed.When revolution broke her bars And she was free,She came forth in the glorious lightAnd showed her hands, all seamed with scars,And turned her face up to the starsAnd cried: "I fed, through all the years, On hope of Liberty!"
She did her "bit" with bar and bolt,Mayhap with lash, and yet—and yet The world her smile may see!She wakes us up to higher things,She shows us heights our hearts forget,She shames us into sacrifice For home and Liberty!