Prayer

Translated by C. H. Andrusyshen and Watson Kirkconnell

Send to those boundless traffickers in blood,
The tsars of earth, their ducats and their dollars
And shackless aptly forged!

Send to the heads and hands that toil amain
Upon this earth, so looted and despoiled,
The impulse of your strength!

Vouchsafe to me, O God, upon this earth,
The gift of love, that pleasant paradise,
And nothing else beside!

                    1860, St. Petersburg