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Polish literature in English
Dabrowski's Mazurka (Polish national anthem)
Poland has not yet succumbed.
As long as we remain,
What the foe by force has seized,
Sword in hand we'll gain.
Chorus
March! March, Dabrowski!
March from Italy to Poland!
Under your command
We shall reach our land.
Cross the Vistula and Warta
And Poles we shall be;
We've been shown by Bonaparte
Ways to victory.
Chorus
As Czarniecki Poznan town regains,
Fighting with the Swede,
To free our fatherland from chains,
We shall return by sea.
Chorus
Lyrics of Josef Wybicki (1747-1822)
Music: folk melody
First sung in 1795
Mother of God, Anonymous
Mother of God, Virgin, by God glorified Mary,
From your son, our Lord, chosen mother, Mary!
Win over for us, send to us.
Kyrie eleison.
Son of God, for the sake of your Baptist,
Hear our voices, fulfill man's intentions.
Hearken to the prayer that we offer,
And deign to give us what we ask for:
On earth, a pious sojourn,
After life, heavenly residence.
Kyrie eleison.
Translated by Michael J. Mikos
SONG XXV by Jan Kochanowski
What do You want from us, Lord, for Your lavish gifts?
What for the benefactions, which have no limits?
The Church will not contain You, You are everywhere:
On the earth, in the depths, the sea, the open air.
You do not want gold, I know, as it is all Yours,
Whatever in this world man names as his resource.
With our grateful hearts we sing your glory, O Lord,
For no offering more proper can we afford.
You are the Lord of the whole world, You built the sky,
And embroidered it splendidly with gold stars high.
Of the earth untraversed, You lay the foundation,
And covered its bareness with rich vegetation.
By Your own command the sea stands within its shores
And is fearful to leap over its assigned course.
Inexhaustible waters enrich the rivers,
Bright day and shadowy night keep their hours diverse.
By Your will Spring brings flowers, in abundance born,
By Your will Summer wears wreaths made from ears of corn.
Autumn gives out wine and apples of various kinds,
Idle Winter rises, when ready meal she finds.
By Your grace the dew descends on frail plants at night,
And the rain brings new life to withered grains aright.
From Your hands all animals look for sustenance,
And You nourish them all in Your munificence.
Be praised forever, everlasting Creator!
Your grace and Your goodness will not cease evermore.
Shield us, as long as You deign, on this earth so low,
But in the shade of Your wings let us always go!
'Songs' 1586
Translated by Michael J. Mikos
TO A CORPSE (SONNET) by Jan Andrzej Morsztyn
You lie struck dead, I am struck dead the same,
You with the death bolt, I the love arrow,
You have no blood, I have no ruddy glow,
You have plain candles, I a hidden flame,
Your face is covered with a mourning shroud,
In dreadful darkness my senses are trapped,
Your hands are bound, while my mind has been strapped,
Deprived of freedom, in irons throughout.
But you are silent, while my tongue whimpers,
You feel nothing, I can't deep pain forgo,
You are like ice, I in hellish sunglow.
With time your body into dust scatters,
And yet I cannot scatter in ash pyre,
Eternal element of my own fire.
'Lute' 1661
Translated by Michael J. Mikos
MY TESTAMENT by Juliusz Slowacki
I have lived with you, suffered and shed tears with you.
No noble person have I ever passed aside.
Today I leave you, ghosts in shadows to pursue,
And if happiness were here - in sorrow I stride.
I have not left behind me a single offspring
Either to play my lute or to carry my name ;
My name has passed away like a flash of lightning,
And will last for generations like an empty strain.
But you that have known me, pass to all in legend
That I wore out my youth for the land of my fathers ;
When the ship struggled - I stood at the mast to the end,
And when she was sinking - I too drowned in deep waters...
Yet some day, pondering about the destined lot
Of my poor homeland, any noble man will consent
That my spirit's cloak was not by begging begot,
But as my ancestors' glories shines resplendent.
Let my faithful friends at night gather together
And burn up my poor heart in die leaves of aloe,
Return it to die one who gave it to me later :
So the world pays mothers - giving them ashes to stow...
Let my friends sit down, each one holding a goblet,
And drown in wine my burial - and their own despair...
If I am a spirit, I'll appear to them yet,
If God frees me from torment, I will not come there...
But I beg you - let the living not lose hope ever
And bear the torch of learning before their compatriots ;
And when called, go to their death one after another,
Like the stones tossed by die Lord onto the ramparts...
As for me - I am leaving a small group of friends,
Those who were able to love my haughty spirit ;
One can see I have fulfilled God's hard assignments
And assented to have here - an unwept casket...
Who else would go on without the world's accolades,
Such indifference to the world as I display ?
To be the helmsman of a boat that's filled with shades,
And fly off as quietly as the shade flies away ?
And yet I leave behind me this fateful power,
Useless while I live... it just graces my temples ;
But when I die, it will, unseen, press you ever,
Till it remakes you, bread eaters - into angels
1840
Translated by Michael J. Mikos
The Envoy of Mr Cogito by Zbigniew Herbert
Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize
go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust
you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony
be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important
and let your helpless Anger be like the sea
whenever your hear the voice of the insulted and beaten
let you sister Scorn not leave you
for the informers executioners cowards - they will win
they will go to your funeral with relief will throw a lump of earth
the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography
and do not forgive truly it is not in your power
to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn
beware however of unnecessary pride
keep looking at your clown's face in the mirror
repeat: I was called - weren't there better ones than I
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak
light on a wall the splendor of the sky
they don't need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you
be vigilant - when the light on the mountains gives the sign- arise and go
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way you will be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
Be faithful Go
'Mr Cogito'
translator unknown
Tortures by Wislawa Szymborska
Nothing has changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
it must eat and breathe air and sleep,
it has thin skin and blood right underneath,
an adequate stock of teeth and nails,
its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account.
Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are as they were, it's just the earth that's grown smaller,
and whatever happens seems right on the other side of the wall.
Nothing has changed. It's just that there are more people,
besides the old offenses new ones have appeared,
real, imaginary, temporary, and none,
but the howl with which the body responds to them,
was, is and ever will be a howl of innocence
according to the time-honored scale and tonality.
Nothing has changed. Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances.
Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.
The body writhes, jerks and tries to pull away,
its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,
it turns blue, swells, salivates and bleeds.
Nothing has changed. Except for the course of boundaries,
the line of forests, coasts, deserts and glaciers.
Amid these landscapes traipses the soul,
disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away,
alien to itself, elusive, at times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence,
while the body is and is and is
and has no place of its own.
'People on the bridge' 1986
Translator unknown
Portrait of a woman by Wislawa Szymborska
She must be willing to please.
To change so that nothing should change.
It's easy, impossible, hard, worth trying.
Her eyes are if need be now deep blue, now gray,
dark, playful, filled for no reason with tears.
She sleeps with him like some chance acquaintance, like his one and only.
She will bear him four children, no children, one.
Naive yet giving the best advice.
Weak yet lifting the weightiest burdens.
Has no head on her shoulders but will have.
Reads Jaspers and ladies' magazines.
Doesn't know what this screw is for and will build a bridge.
Young, as usual young, as always still young.
Holds in her hands a sparrow with a broken wing,
her own money for a journey long and distant,
a meat-cleaver, poultice, and a shot of vodka.
Where is she running so, isn't she tired?
Not at all, just a bit, very much, doesn't matter.
Either she loves him or has made up her mind to.
For better, for worse, and for heaven's sake.
1976
Translator unknown
Conversation with Jeanne by Czeslaw Milosz
Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne.
So many words, so much paper, who can stand it.
I told you the truth about my distancing myself.
I've stopped worrying about my misshapen life.
It was no better and no worse than the usual human tragedies.
For over thirty years we have been waging our dispute
As we do now, on the island under the skies of the tropics.
We flee a downpour, in an instant the bright sun again,
And I grow dumb, dazzled by the emerald essence of the leaves.
We submerge in foam at the line of the surf,
We swim far, to where the horizon is a tangle of banana bush,
With little windmills of palms.
And I am under accusation: That I am not up to my oeuvre,
That I do not demand enough from myself,
As I could have learned from Karl Jaspers,
That my scorn for the opinions of this age grows slack.
I roll on a wave and look at white clouds.
You are right, Jeanne, I don't know how to care about the salvation of my soul.
Some are called, others manage as well as they can.
I accept it, what has befallen me is just.
I don't pretend to the dignity of a wise old age.
Untranslatable into words, I chose my home in what is now,
In things of this world, which exist and, for that reason, delight us:
Nakedness of women on the beach, coppery cones of their breasts,
Hibiscus, alamanda, a red lily, devouring
With my eyes, lips, tongue, the guava juice, the juice of la prune de Cythere,
Rum with ice and syrup, lianas-orchids
In a rain forest, where trees stand on the stilts of their roots.
Death, you say, mine and yours, closer and closer,
We suffered and this poor earth was not enough.
The purple-black earth of vegetable gardens
Will be here, either looked at or not.
The sea, as today, will breathe from its depths.
Growing small, I disappear in the immense, more and more free.
1980
Translator unknown
Campo di Fiori by Czeslaw Milosz
In Rome on the Campo di Fiori
baskets of olives and lemons,
cobbles spattered with wine
and the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
with rose-pink fish;
armfuls of dark grapes
heaped on peach-down.
On this same square
they burned Giordano Bruno,
Henchmen kindled the pyre
close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
the taverns were full again,
baskets of olives and lemons
again on the vendors' shoulders.
I thought of the Campo di Fiori
in Warsaw by the sky-carousel
one clear spring evening
to the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
the salvos from the ghetto wall,
and couples were flying
high in the cloudless sky.
At times wind from the burning
would drift dark kites along
and riders on the carousel
caught petals in midair.
That same hot wind
blew open the skirts of the girls
and the crowds were laughing
on that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.
Someone will read as moral
that the people of Rome or Warsaw
haggle, laugh, make love
as they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
of the passing of things human,
of the oblivion
born before the flames have died.
But that day I thought only
of the loneliness of the dying,
of how, when Giordano
climbed to his burning
he could not find
in any human tongue
words for mankind,
mankind who live on.
Already they were back at their wine
or peddled their white starfish,
baskets of olives and lemons
they had shouldered to the fair,
and he already distanced
as if centuries had passed
while they paused just a moment
for his flying in the fire.
Those dying here, the lonely
forgotten by the world,
our tongue becomes for them
the language of an ancient planet.
Until, when all is legend
and many years have passed,
on a new Campo di Fiori
rage will kindle at a poet's word.
Warsaw, Easter of 1943
Translator unknown
A Song on the End of the World by Czeslaw Milosz
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.
Warsaw, 1943 'Poems'
Translator unknown
A Poem for the End of the Century by Czeslaw Milosz
When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.
Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.
Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?
To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."
"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."
To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?
Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.
Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity.
1980
Translator unknown
Over This, Your White Grave by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)
Over this, your white grave
the flowers of life in white--
so many years without you--
how many have passed out of sight?
Over this your white grave
covered for years, there is a stir
in the air, something uplifting
and, like death, beyond comprehension.
Over this your white grave
oh, mother, can such loving cease?
for all his filial adoration
a prayer:
Give her eternal peace--
[Krakow, spring 1939]
The Quarry by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)
He wasn't alone.
His muscles grew into the flesh of the crowd, energy their pulse,
As long as they held a hammer, as long as his feet felt the ground.
And a stone smashed his temples and cut through his heart's chamber.
They took his body and walked in a silent line
Toil still lingered about him, a sense of wrong.
They wore gray blouses, boots ankle-deep in mud.
In this, they showed the end.
How violently his time halted: the pointers on the low voltage dials jerked, then dropped to zero again.
White stone now within him, eating into his being, taking over enough of him to turn him into stone.
Who will lift up that stone, unfurl his thoughts again under the cracked temples?
So plaster cracks on the wall.
They laid him down, his back on a sheet of gravel.
His wife came, worn out with worry; his son returned from school
Should his anger now flow into the anger of others?
It was maturing in him through his own truth and love
Should he be used by those who came after, deprived of substance, unique and deeply his own?
The stones on the move again; a wagon bruising the flowers.
Again the electric current cuts deep into the walls.
But the man has taken with him the world's inner structure, where the greater the anger, the higher the explosion of love.
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