And started to yawn,--
So over the vodka,
Beneath the old willow,
One topic prevails:
The "break in the chain"
Of their lords, the Pomyeshchicks.

The deacon they ask, 200
And his sons, to oblige them
By singing a song
Called the "Merry Song" to them.

(This song was not really
A song of the people:
The deacon's son Grisha
Had sung it them first.
But since the great day
When the Tsar, Little Father,
Had broken the chains 210
Of his suffering children,
They always had danced
To this tune on the feast-days.
The "popes" and the house-serfs
Could sing the words also,
The peasants could not,
But whenever they heard it
They whistled and stamped,
And the "Merry Song" called it.)