Vladimir Putin of the Rus,
By the soul of the Orthodoxy he swore
That the cursed name of the Soviet Union
Should suffer rightful slander no more.
By the might of the river Don he swore it,
And named a marching-day,
And bade his armored tanks tread forth,
Toward the Ukraine West and North,
To vanguard his his infantry's wide array.

So, forward, to the West and North
The armored trucks drive, and fast,
And Cathedral and slum and airport
Have heard the artillery's fiery blast.
Shame on the false, free European,
Who lingers in his comfy, safe, Western home
When that cruel Tyrant, Vladimir Putin,
Is on the march for the West, and all that's Free!

The Azov scouts and the sniper-gunmen
Are pouring in like the rain,
From many a crowded, Urban stack,
From many a lichen-strewn plain;
From many a lonely, valley village,
Which, hid by spruce and pine,
Like a Golden Eagle's nest, hangs on the rocky crest
Of purple-green Alpines.

The harvests of the Autumn,
This year, old men shall reap;
This year, young boys in Crimea
Shall plunge through deathly battle-seas;
And in the hospital beds where they were born,
This year, the emptiness shall live,
'Round the rosy white feet of laughing maidens
Whose sons have marched to Kyiv.

Now, in Russia, there dwelt a mighty Statesman,
Aleksander Dugin, Putin's own right hand,
Who always by Vladimir Putin,
Both morning and evening did stand:
Evening and morning Dugin's tired eyes
Have turned the dusty pages o'er,
Traced from the left in type-ink, black,
By esteemed Philosophers in the Arts of War,

And with a single voice, all the Scholars,
Through Dugin's lips, to Putin, have gladly their answer given:
"Go forth, go forth, wise Vladimir;
Go forth, beloved of Heaven;
Go, and return in glory
To Moscow's regal Kremlin-spires,
And light 'round your Country's altars
The Ukraine's funeral pyres."

And now, has every Russian province, from the loyal North Kazakh to the barren Magyardan,
Sent up her winding train of hardy men;
The foot are ten-score thousand,
The tanks are thousands ten.
Before the outskirts of Kyiv,
Is met two great arrays,
And, a proud man was Vladimir Putin,
Upon that gory day.

For all the Wagner Groups and Russian Armies
Were ranged wide beneath his eye,
And many an eager Soviet veteran,
And many a conscripted, Chinese ally;
And with the mighty following
To join the call of muster came
The storied Russian Generals,
With all their bright medals and their fame.

But by the encircling river, to the East of Kyiv,
Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious, muddy, plain
To the West, all but the Azov took their flight.
For miles around the city,
The Russian throng stopped up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see
Through many long nights and days.

Now, from the Crimean Peninsula
Could the roving Roma Gypsies spy
The smoke of the blazing city
Red as Hades in the midnight sky.
Volodmyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine,
Sat all night and day,
For every hour some brave, young scout came
With new tidings of worsening dismay:

"To Northward and to Westward
Have spread the un-numbered Russian martial bands;
Nor homestead nor fence, nor ghetto,
In the Eastern city still stands.
One general down to the Black Sea,
Has wasted all the plain;
Putin's vanguard has stormed Kyiv,
And the stoutest men lie slain."

Out of all Zelensky's tough commanders,
There was not a heart as his, so just and bold,
But sore it ached, and fast it beat,
When that ill news was told.
Then, up rose the city leaders,
Up rose the policemen all;
In haste they packed their things,
And brought them to the airport wall.

They held a meeting standing
Before blood-hungry Putin's crimson tide;
Short time there was, as you may guess,
For musing, wonder or debate.
Out spoke Zelensky frankly:
"The bridge must go straight down;
For, since it's Eastern side is lost,
Nothing else can save the town."

Just then an armored Azov scout came flying,
All wild with haste and drenched in fear:
"To arms! to arms! Ukrainians;
For dread Putin is here."
On the low hills to East,
Zelensky fixed his keenest eye,
And saw the swarthy storm of tundra-dust
Rise fast and horrid along the darkened sky.

And nearer, fast, and nearer
Does the Russian whirlwind come;
And louder still, and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard Katyusha's war-note proud,
The deathly trampling and the hum.

And plainly and more plainly
Now through the sanguine gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-red light,
The long array of tanks, and bright,
The long array of snipers and of Russian shouts and cheers,

And plainly and more plainly,
Above the cold and glimmering line,
Now one might see the bleak, gray skylines
Of enslaved Russian cities darkly shine;
But the ambition of proud Putin
Was the highest of them all,
The terror of the Finn.
The terror of the Mongol.

Fast by Putin's loyal legion,
O'erlooking all the approaching war,
Putin's right-hand General, himself,
Sat in his night-black armored car.
By the right wheel was Dugin,
Mystic of Rasputin's name,
And by the left was a young Lieutenant,
That wrought the deed of shame.

But when the face of Russia,
Was seen among their foes, our heroes,
A yell that rent the highest firmament
From all of Kyiv arose.
On the roof-tops was no woman
That did not spit toward the East and give a hiss,
Not a child that failed to scream out unspeakable curses,
And shake a little, yellow-blue fist.

But Zelensky's brow was saddened,
And his speech to rouse was soft and low,
And darkly he stared at his eager men,
And grimly at the Russian foe.
"Their horde will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they may but once win o'er the bridge,
What hope to save the Kyiv, our town?"

Then up spoke brave Vitaly Skakun Volodmyrovych, upon his crackling radio,
The Lieutenant of the Eastmost Azov Border-Guard:
"To every man that dwells upon this free Earth
Death will claim you, too early or too late;
And how can a loyal soldier die better
Than facing the most fearful odds,
For the sake of the headstones of his Fathers' Fathers' Fathers,
And the high Cathedrals of his God.

"And for the tender, loving mother
Who fed him milk to make him to rest,
And for the wife who even now nurses
His baby beneath her breast,
And for his brothers in arms,
Who feed war's eternal, morbid flame,
To save them from false Putin
Who wrought the deed of shame?

"Now, blow the bridge to pieces, Zelensky,
With all the speed you wish and may;
I, with no man at arms to aid me,
Will hold the bitter foe in play.
In your straight path, a hundred Russian Soldiers,
May fast be stopped dead by me.
Now who will remember my trigger-hand,
And the detonated bridge instead of me?"

"Vitaly Volodmyrovych", said Zelensky,
"As you say, so let it be,"
And straight against that dread array
Marched forth dauntless Vitaly.
For Slavic men in war's timeless quarrel
Spared neither property nor banks of gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,
In the warlike days of old.

And in the freezing nights of Ukraine's bitter winter,
When the coldest East winds wail and blow,
And the long howling of the wild wolves
Is heard, amid the piled snow;
When, all around the lonely sniper's well-hidden lean-to
Roars loud the gale's biting din,
And the good logs of hearty spruce, ablaze,
Roar louder still, within;

When the oldest German-brand beer is cracked to open,
And the largest array of the foe has been met,
When peaceful memories glow amidst the burning embers,
And the cold soup boils hot upon the turning spit;
When youngest and oldest of Ukraine's children, in circle
Around the home-fires draw warm and close;
When the young girls are weeping for their slain lovers,
And their own sons practice firing at the Russian foe;

When the welder mends the canvas-truck's armor,
And the Ukrainian soldier trims his matted beard's unruly plume;
When the old wife's shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the uniform's torn loom,—
With mournful weeping and with bright laughter
Still the story is, and ever must be told,
How well Vitaly Skakun Volodmyrovch fell with the bridge
In the Ukraine's rugged days of old.