Russia.

Russia.

For Russia’s People I have much respect,

But its despotic government I hate:
Its doom is written in the book of Fate,—
For in all tyranny one can detect
The germs of its own death; or soon or late 5
Russia must fall in pieces: she can ne’er
The Vessel of the State through troubles steer
Which increases with the conquests.
Isolate are their rulers. Only by justice can
A Government for aye be strongly built, 10
All in the past have fallen through their guilt,
And ever will. The day will come when man
Will brother be to man o’er all the world,
And all oppression be to Hades hurl’d.

George Markham Tweddell
p. 117 [in Miscellaneous Sonnets]

Written sometime in the 19thC