Siberia

IN Siberia's wastes The ice-wind's breath Woundeth like the toothed steel; Lost Siberia doth reveal Only blight and death. Blight and death alone. No Summer shines. Night is interblent with Day. In Siberia's wastes alway The blood blackens, the heart pines. In Siberia's wastes No tears are shed, For they freeze within the brain. Nought is felt but dullest pain, Pain acute, yet dead; Pain as in a dream, When years go by Funeral-paced, yet fugitive, When man lives, and doth not live. Doth not live -- nor die. In Siberia's wastes Are sands and rocks Nothing blooms of green or soft, But the snow-peaks rise aloft And the gaunt ice-blocks. And the exile there Is one with those; They are part, and lie is part, For the sands are in his heart, And the killing snows. Therefore, in those wastes None curse the Czar. Each man's tongue is cloven by The North Blast, that heweth nigh With sharp scymitar. And such doom each sees, Till, hunger-gnawn, And cold-slain, he at length sinks there, Yet scarce more a corpse than ere His last breath was drawn.