The Visit of the Tzar

The Russian Ambassador has informed the Lord Mayor that the Tsar will be happy to receive an address of welcome from the Corporation during his approaching visit. We suggest that the address, which will be presented at Cowes, might take the following form:—

This welcome, O Tsar, we bring thee, in a casket carved of gold,
A hymn from the home of Freedom, for thy tyrannies manifold;
For the curse of thy brutish Cossacks, for thy horde of bloodhound spies,
For thy prisons’ teeming horrors, for thy people’s sacrifice;
For the lashings and the tortures, and the glutted gallows-tree,
For the food deeds done in darkness, nor stayed by a word from thee!
For all these, O Tsar, we hail thee; and since thou dare’st not meet
The eyes of English freemen in the open London street,
Our hole-and-corner homage we have crawled, like slaves, to pay
Where thou findest kingly shelter in the steel-encircled bay.
Judge, then, how Britain loves thee, when her Money-Bags give voice
To acclaim thy gracious visit to the land of Freedom’s choice!