Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov 150th

Off stage the seagull mews in the wintry sky
Above the island of Sakhalin, as the passage
Of all that went by, the Russian penance bent
On the knees of the Orthodox Christ and the Tsar
The history of the ever-stretching Empire
Has a page of news billed to a lonely silver beech
Anton is coming, Anton is coming, to see for himself
The burden of expansion and lack of freedom
The good doctor on his way beyond the Moscow
Crowd, beyond St. Petersburg, beyond the drama
Of reception, off he goes, a man with a conscience
Whose good deeds like the Prince, are not recorded
In the popular myth, all eyes and ears to the Cherry
Orchard, to the three sisters, to the Seagull, to Vanya,
The man who felt the tug of the lowest of the low
Off stage the seagull mews in the wintry sky.