In the Tsar's palace stands a hall right nobly builded; Its walls are neither carved, nor velvet-hung, nor gilded, Nor here beneath the glass doth pearl or diamond glow; But wheresoe'er ye look, around, above, below, The quick-eyed Painter's hand, now bold, now softly tender, From his free pencil here hath shed a magic splendour. Here are no village nymphs, no dewy forest-glades, No fauns with giddy cups, no snowy-bosom'd maids, No hunting-scene, no dance; but cloaks, and plumes, and sabres, And faces sternly still, and dark with hero-labours. The Painter's art hath here in glittering crowd portray'd The chiefs who Russia's line to victory array'd; Chiefs in that great Campaign attired in fadeless glory Of the year Twelve, that aye shall live in Russian story. Here oft in musing mood my silent footstep strays, Before these well-known forms I love to stop and gaze, And dream I hear their voice, 'mid battle-thunder ringing. Some of them are no more; and some, with faces flinging Upon the canvass still Youth's fresh and rosy bloom, Are wrinkled now and old, and bending to the tomb The laurel-wreathed brow. But chiefly One doth win me 'Mid the stern throng. With new thoughts swelling in me Before that One I stand, and cannot lightly brook To take mine eye from him. And still, the more I look, The more within my breast is bitterness awaked. He's painted at full length. His brow, austere and naked, Shines like a fleshless skull, and on it ye may mark A mighty weight of woe. Around him--all is dark; Behind, a tented field. Tranquil and stern he raises His mournful eye, and with contemptuous calmness gazes. Be't that the artist here embodied his own thought, When on the canvass thus the lineaments he caught, Or guided and inspired by some unknown Possession-- I know not: Dawe has drawn the man with this expression.