Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PRINCE AND THE CZAR, by JOHN LAURENCE RENTOUL



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PRINCE AND THE CZAR, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The prince and the czar ride into the streets
Last Line: Let the wild wars cease and the nations rest!'
Alternate Author Name(s): Gage, Gervais
Subject(s): Alexander Ii, Czar Of Russia (1818-1881); Courts & Courtiers; Crowns; Edward Vii, King Of England (1841-1910); Freedom; History; Leadership; London; Liberty; Historians


THE Prince and the Czar ride into the streets
'Mid a proud free People's mood of grace;
And forgot is the hate of the hosts and fleets,
We are drawn to the Man and the human face,
I am won by the spell of the human face.

Look! there they are sitting side by side,
The blond young Prince and the great grim Czar,
Whose Peoples grappled by land and tide
In the rage of the stupid and bootless war,
The crime of the weird Crimean War.

The Czar's fair daughter has plighted troth
With the sailor son of the British Queen;
And of what avail were the fury and wrath
That sundered the lands in the years between,
And soaked blood-red God's fields of green?

And "Tommy Atkins" is lining the street
In his bearskin shako to welcome the Czar,
As wholesome of heart his foe to greet
As to fight him again in the next wild war,
Should the Fooldoms unleash the dogs of war.

I have ruth for the Czar's bronzed care-lined face
As he gazes, the cheering crowds adown,
At a free great People's mood of grace
Round their Prince in the great free London town,
The free-born Briton's London town.

For this is the Czar whose single word
Set free the serf in his own wide land;
And his Folk's dull heart was vaguely stirred,
Unripe and unready to understand:
O, 'twill wake, one day, and understand!

Each step of the way has a tale to tell,
As they sweep through the city by Temple Bar,
How the wrong went down and the tyrant fell
In the rally and rout of the People's war,
When they forged through pain the days that are.

Each turn of the street has a story to tell
How the freedoms were wrung, in the days gone by,
From a despot king or a prelate fell
When the people demanded the reason why:
And their necks paid toll for the reason why!—

Till there came new kings of a wiser mood,
With the open ear and the seeing eye,
And their sceptre symbolled the People's good,
And their Voice was the People's reason why:
O, their throne is built on the reason why!

Till there came to the throne a young girl-queen:
They waked her at night in her white girl-gown,
And they cast on her orphan brow the sheen
Of a peerless Empire's peerless crown:
So lonely a maiden, so heavy a crown!

And she loved and wed: and her spell reached forth
And drew each Briton-hearted zone,
From the sun-veined South to the ice-ribbed North,
To her Mother-heart and her central throne:
The sea-girt land and the sea-orbed throne!

And this frank Prince is her son and her heir,
With his blithe bright face and his eyes of blue,
With his sense for the pomp of the days that were
And his reason's grip of the new and the true,
And his honour as staunch as his word is true.

He is glad, this Prince, in his People's joy,
He is proud of their love as they look in his eyes;
The brain of a man and the heart of a boy
And the pulse of the human are making him wise:
And the tact of a Ruler gleams clear in his eyes.

He glances aside at his guest's grim face
To see how the Czar is taking it in—
The cheers of a People's loyal grace,
The riotous order, the jubilant din,
The roar of Freedom, the joyous din.

But the Czar's grim face gives never a sign
Of the thoughts that are stirring his bosom now,—
The sad eyes rimmed by their dark outline,
And the furrows ploughed in the breadth of brow:
O, the lonesome eyes and the brooding brow!

Does he see, in a vision vague and dim—
In a pageant dread that is yet to be—
A Czar, on the sudden, torn limb from limb,
'Mid the crowds of the city beyond the sea?
O, his own great bourg by the Baltic Sea,
In the blind birth-throes of Liberty!

For he kens, this Czar with the human soul,
The law that is written on Crown and on Cross
And on Freedom's tear-stained bible and scroll—
That 'a saviour of men from their doom and their loss
With the cost of his own life's blood pays toll':
The harvest is reaped, but the seed paid toll!

But the horse-hoofs prance: and there comes in her car
The princess-wife, that shall be a Queen:
In that long radiance one sole star,
Alone, and resplendent, and serene:
The peerless Maid shall be peerless Queen!

O, the cheers ring out at the sight of her face,
And the poise of her head sets you all on flame,
And her look seems saying: "I've heard of your case
And feel for your trouble and ask for your name!"
And you join in the cheers with your soul aflame.

So my vow reaches out to her bright young smile,
To her wonder of beauty and witching mien:
You would fight for her through to the world's last mile
And die for her, crowned in your heart as Queen!
This Maid of the North shall be England's Queen!

But my eyes come back to my Prince's glance,
And its pride in his People's festive mood,
And its glad look cast at the Czar askance,
And its wholesome sense that Life is good:
Yes, in Freedom's England Life is good!

And sorrow will come and furrow his face
With lines as deep as a Czar's can wear;
But a self-ruled People's love and grace
Will lighten the load of his lonesome care,
Set free from a brooding Czar's despair.

So the Prince and the Czar rode into the streets
'Mid a proud free People's mood of grace;
And forgot was the rage of the hosts and fleets,
We were drawn to the Man and the human face,
I was won by the spell of the human face.

And they pranced on their way to the old Guildhall,
Where the roofs on the narrow old streets look down;
For the proudest and greatest and best of them all
Are proud of the Freedom of London Town,
This old free city of London Town.

And I, who hold by the People's cause,
Nor care for a Monarch's nod or frown,
Was won, that day, in my heart's applause,
To the Prince's claim and his coming crown,
The frank-faced Prince and his destined crown.

And I, who have scorn for the pomp of men,
And I, who have never touched his hand,
Crowned him as King in my heart just then,
And would fight for his throne in the Briton's land,
To the brave last ditch of the Briton's land!

O Doom, that broods o'er the East and the West,
The bodings hush and the threats unsay!
Let the God and the Man speak clear in the breast
Of the hosts and the Peoples and Kings to-day:
'Let the wild wars cease and the Nations rest!'





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