poetry

Joaquin Miller, “Sophia Perovskaya” (1881)

Sophie Perovskaya, LIBERTY’S MARTYRED HEROINE. Hanged April 15, 1881, For Helping to Rid the World of a Tyrant. Down from her high estate she stept,             A maiden, gently born And by the icy Volga kept             Sad watch, and waited morn; And peasants say that where she slept             The new moon dipped her horn.                         Yet on and on, through shoreless snows                                     Stretched tow’rd the great north pole,                         The foulest wrong the good God known                                     Rolls as dark rivers roll.                         While never once for all these woes                                     Upspeaks one human soul. She toiled, […]