The Conversion of St. Vladimir/Canto 4
CANTO IV
Perun’s Testament
Hark, good Christians, to the story—
Sad, indeed, ’tis to relate—
Of the Russian god’s last hour
And his sorry, mournful fate.
List not ye with tender feeling,
But your heart control
And invoke a Pater Noster
For his pitiable soul.
Brutally, to a wild mare’s tail
They tied him by his feet,
And dragged him over cobblestones
And mire, through the street.
And in his wake the journalist—
Oh, may the fates forfend—
Was inhumanely fastened
To a stallion’s rear end!
Thus the Tsar’s cruel satraps
Who held the hangman’s role,
With the unfortunate creatures
Wiped every muddy hole.
Coming to the river’s bank
Badly cut and torn,
There, like kittens, they were drowned,—
Blind, helpless, newly born.
Thus they perished, unconfessed,
Sadly disappointed,
Save that on their final trip
They were with mud anointed.
I, myself, did not attend
This affair—I quote
That which Nestor, for his kin,
In his “Memoirs” wrote.—
“Thus upon this mundane sphere
Honors quickly pass—
Yesterday you were a god,
Today you’re but an ass.
“Today upon your altar
They incense burn, and myrrh;
Tomorrow they are eager
In mire you to inter.”
The new gods they establish
Must to their moods appeal,
Whom yesterday they murdered
Today before him kneel.
“In this world all things perish
Like rubbish, and decay.
Even the kingdom of a god,
It seems, must pass away.
“No one but Tsars and autocrats
And other such galoots
Endure and last forever,
Like a pair of cowhide boots.”
Thus did god Perun ponder
While trailing through the street,
And just as it was told me
I truthfully repeat.
I hardly would invent it
Even had I the skill,
Since I, for fabricating,
A prison cell might fill.
[1]At Kiefelstein and Spielberg
A great many dungeons are,
If one wants to avoid them
He must shout, “God save the Tsar!”
Honor whom sits on a throne,
Dear son, and wears a crown—
For on the loyal, lowly soul
The Tsar looks kindly down.
He who worships Tsardom blindly
Has rewards for him in store;
Who rebels against its mandates,
He is lost forevermore.
- ↑ Austrian Prisons
