My people come to me and make their moan:
“We starve, your Majesty—give us a stone.”
That’s flat rebellion!—how the devil dare
They starve right in my capital? Their prayer
For something in their bellies I will meet
With that which I’ll not trouble them to eat.
They ask for greater freedom. No, indeed—
What happened to my ancestor who freed
The serfs? His grateful subjects duly flung
Something that spoke to him without a tongue.
So he was sacrificed for Freedom’s sake,
And gathered to his fathers with a rake.
I from Autocracy my people free?
Ah, would to Heaven they could deliver me!
Public-domain source text
Saith the Czar
by Ambrose Bierce
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