The poem, which she wrote under the pen name "Anise", is included in Albert Rhys William's book "Lenin The Man and His Work" (Scott and Seltzer, New York, 1919).
LENIN
BY ANISE
In a little room
In the Kremlin
Just off the high court
Of the old CZAR,
In a chair still bearing
The old czar's crest,
Sat LENIN
A little bald-headed man
Of forty-eight years,
Patient, deliberate,
No lover of WORDS,
But a quiet, shrewd executive
Into whose eyes
The swift sharp flash
Of a GREAT VISION
Comes for a moment
And is gone
Lenin who saw in his youth
His brother's corpse swing out
From the czar's gibbet,
Who saw the PRIEST
Hold up the holy IKON
Blessing the Cossack's rule
Of WHIP and SWORD,
Lenin, the noble
Who swore in that hour
ETERNAL ENMITY
Against the ancient order
And went forth, suspect
To danger and prison
And long, long years of toil
And final TRIUMPH!
He sat there, calm and sure,
And said: "Colonel Robins,
The REVOLUTION
May FAIL in Russia,
For we are a primitive land
Forced forward
BEYOND
Our natural pace!
But we will keep alive
The FLAME of revolution
Till the WORLD is alight!
It will come first
In Bulgaria
And the Bulgars
Will cease fighting.
It will come next
In Austria
And the Austrians
Will cease fighting,
And THEN it will come
In Germany,
And the power of the kaiser
Will crumble inward.
When the day comes
That a Workers' Council
Rules in BERLIN
REMEMBER
The little man in the KREMLIN,
Who said: "That day
Marks the beginning
Of the NEW WORLD!
Yes, even though the powers
Of ALL the EARTH
Combine to crush us
As once they joined to crush
The Revolution in France.
YET as the IDEA
Of the French Revolution
Overthrew at last
They feudal lords of earth,
All its own CONQUERORS,
So shall the IDEA
Of OUR revolution
Overthrow in the end
OUR CONQUERORS!
