, as you wished, o'er enfranchised lands it sounds,
And shocks the gentle, and stirs the blood of the strong;
But he, the Autocrat, sits, with a shaken mind,
And a palsied heart; to the tale of horror and wrong
He's deaf and blind!

Pale ladies lashed, at the word of a drunken brute,
To the death they welcome e'en from the torturing "plet!"
And his eyes are blind, and his trembling lips are mute,
Whilst the eyes of a world of shuddering men are wet.
Chained gangs of patriot captives stabbed or shot
At the scared caprice of a bully, craven-souled!
And the Autocrat, whilst all hearts with shame wax hot,
Sits still and cold!

Ust-Kara's far, and the hasty scaffold reared
In the grey of the early morning bore--a fool,
Who had not learned that Law must be blindly feared,
Though sent to the stern Siberian wastes to school.
The unconvicted exile who dares to lift
A voice, a hand, is a proven "Terrorist."
And if, in Yakoutsk, he is given a shortish shrift,
Need the White TZAR list?

The White TZAR sits on his gorgeous seat, alone;
Blindfold and deaf, in his realm the veriest slave,
Though the seat he fills is the rack men call a Throne,
And the TZAR is a stalwart Titan, strong and brave.
Strong--yet helpless as yon slain woman's hand;
Brave--but shaken through with a haunting Fear.
Of all his myrmidons' devilries done in the land
The last to hear!

Let it be known! Poor ZOTOFF'S legacy wakes
A living echo in every ear humane.
E'en the Autocrat in his lonely splendour quakes
At the vague vast sounds of menace no bonds restrain.
But there, in the heart of horrors, he sits and sighs,
Blindfold Injustice bound to a joyless throne;
Whilst far the voice of his fallen victim flies--
"_Let it be known!_"

* * * * *

[Illustration: A DISTINCTION AND A DIFFERENCE.

"Now what are the peculiar Distinctions of the Quakers? For instance,
how do they Speak differently From You and Me?"

"Please, Sir, they don't Swear!"]

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASES.

SOCIAL.

"_Just want five minutes' chat with you_;" _i.e._, "He'll give me a
cigar and something to drink, and as I've nothing to do for half an
hour, this will occupy me pleasantly."

"_Yes; I quite understand_;" _i.e.