Speravit
contra spent: that is a great and holy word of
the sacred Scriptures3.
the sacred Scriptures3.
Poland - 1919 - Krasinski - Anonymous Poet of Poland
89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-us-google
? Resurrecturis
305
of the body, the worthlessness of mind. So shall we be counted
among the stupid and the happy.
Oh, let it not be so! My soul, draw back, oh, stay! Not
with that weapon at the head of all humanity shall the van-
quishers of evil pursue evil without mercy. One only power
in the world, the quiet might of sacrifice, shall crush the
crushing fate. This is the lion of the history of the world.
Pride or abasement are but chaff which each breath of history
casts into the pit.
Oh, know thyself for what thou art. Crave not for the
mastery which is His Who is in heaven, nor choose to be as
the brute beast fattening on the fields of pasture. On this
side the grave, before the resurrection dawns, be thou in man
the suffering which is of heaven, be thou the masterpiece of
unbent will, be patience, mistress of misfortune that slowly
buildeth up her edifice from nought. Be thou defeat, of
distant aim, but which at last shall conquer for all ages.
Be peace amidst the raving of the storm, order in chaos,
harmony in discord. Be thou eternal beauty in the eternal
war of life. Only for vile men and for Pharisees be menace,
wrath, or silence sanctified; and with dissimulation have no
league. But for all others be an angel's breath. Be thou the
sustenance that giveth life to hearts. Be as a sister's tears to
those that mourn, the voice of manhood when their courage
faints. Be home to those who are driven forth from home,
hope to those who have lost their hope, and to those sleeping
in a death-like sleep be thou the awakening thunderblast.
In the struggle with this hell of earth be ever, everywhere the
strength that against death prevails by the stronger strength
of love. Be thou the hell of love1.
In the unceasing form of word and pattern give thine own
self forth freely to thy brothers. Multiply thy one self by
living deeds, and thousands from thy one self shall rise. Be
even in chains unwearied toil. Let every pain, albeit it be
pain, not pain thee. Be thou thy whole nation in thy one
heart. Be thou the miracle uniting heaven to earth--be
sanctity in bondage.
Hasten not to death till, seed in the soil, thy thought
is sown in hearts, and brings forth fruit. So long as thy
own martyrdom assures not victory, thy martyrdom will be
to thy good only, not to humanity's. Shun martyrdom! The
1 Meaning the colossal power of love. Against the objection of the
critics to the term Krasinski stated that it was not his but St Theresa's.
See Letters to St. Kozmian.
G.
20
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? 306 The A nonymous Poet of Poland
garlands of vain glory are grasped by madmen, into the gulf
of danger heroes leap, but the soul's higher strength heedeth
not these illusions.
Only then, when the bell of events, wailing, summoneth
thee to sacrifice thyself for their redemption, and thou, hearing
the earth's call, fallest with thy soul in humble penitence at the
dividing threshold of two worlds, and in thy soul sent thither
by God flows in the silence God's inspiring voice, then rise:
and as the champion who has reached the lists shake from thy
feet the dust from off this earth. Rise, and from the love which,
when it loveth dies, lift to the heavens thy upsoaring hands.
Rise, and to the executioners, hastening on thee, hasten thou
first; and calmly, sweetly, peacefully welcome those guests,
unmourning, with the pitying gaze of thy immortal soul. Then
end with thy rich witness in the future. Be by thy death the
highest bloom of life. What the world called dream and
mirage make thou awake and living, make of it faith, make
of it law, make of it what is certain, tangible, a holy thing
that as a poniard penetrates to hearts to pierce there with-
out end, moving them albeit only by the breath of sighs: until
the world, thy murderer, shall kneel, confessing that God and
country are the conscience of the nations.
When thy thought takes the crimson of thy body's flowing
blood, thy thought shall be the stream of life flashing on high,
God's judgment on the godless multitudes below. Nor man
nor cannon shall keep it back, nor falsehood nor deception,
genius or glory, kings or peoples. And in the third span, on
thy suffering's grave, out of the deluge of events, over the
abyss of sorrows the unborn shall be born--and justice rise1.
Resurrecturis was Krasinski's favourite among his
poems. From the time it appeared, overpowered by
physical sufferings, he could speak no more to his
nation. Yet during these last years he occasionally
wrote lyrics, intimate and sacred, but not for the public
gaze. They are his poems to his wife. It has been
pointed out that the character of Krasinski's love
poems is their passion and virility, which never degene-
1 This last stanza has another reading in Krasinski's original MS. of
1846: "When thy thought shall take flesh from thy body's flowing blood,
thy thought shall be a sacrament, and in the third span they shall not find
thee in thy grave. God now is with thee, God now is in thee. "
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? Resurrecturis
307
rate into sentimentality1. We have already drawn
attention to another peculiarity that distinguishes them;
they are the love poems of a patriot. The poet had
uttered into the ears of his Beatrice his grief for Poland,
illumined by the hope that had risen upon him from
her look. As he neared his end it was his wife who
was the recipient of the deepest and noblest love of his
manhood and of the same high ardour of patriotism, but
one that had been tried and proved victorious in the
furnace of life2. During the winter of 1851-52, which
Krasinski and his family passed in Rome, the poet was
not only in fast declining health, but the victim of
profound melancholy. Yet the Eternal City that had
inspired his Iridion still had even in the midst of his
sadness its message for him and Poland: and in the
spring he wrote that most beautiful of poems, known
in the earlier editions as Roma, but which Krasinski
himself simply calls in his manuscript: To Elisa.
Oh, my loved, lovely one, blessed be thou, because tempted
by the infernal foes thou hast trodden their false allurements
unceasingly beneath thy feet. Oh, my loved, lovely one,
blessed be thou, because upon thy brow thou bearest not the
crown of pride, but the thorn of Polish woes and thoughts of
Christ. Oh, Polish wife of mine, blessed be thou because, while
the world is perishing and our country dies, thou hast among
the whirlwinds of our time believed in hope, even against hope
itself. Oh, Polish wife of mine, blessed be thou, because when
the veil of time is rent asunder that hitherto conceals God's
thought in space, they shall not be defeated who are conquered
now, they shall not sorrow who shed tears to-day.
See, what around thee in the Roman plains is left of pride.
Amidst a desert the turbid Tiber flows through ruins. And
here in gold and purple the unjust trod. To-day the marbles
of their temples sleep in the mire above their dust. And here
they said: "We shall blot out the nations. Only Rome shall
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Op. cit.
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? 308 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
live. " See in their circuses flocks feed and ivy crawls. Read
from the ruins of the Campagna which was Rome's that Poland
shall not die. Power without love is like to smoke: not we,
but it, shall pass. As from yon catacombs that lie beneath the
earth the cross victorious rose, so we shall from the grave go
with victorious steps, immortalized by pain. Oh! let my
witness be the nation's Forum, changed to a desert vale; let
my witness be these sundered heads of the Corinthian pillars,
these statues of the gods shattered to fragments, these Thermae,
arches, aqueducts, transformed to wild and shapeless rocks.
Let my witness be tombs without end from hill to hill. Let
my witness be all that is here both far and near, on height or
plain, the light of heaven and the human ruins, that Poland
shall not die--that there is an avenging spirit that at God's
decree pierces the deep heart of the history of mankind, that
falsehood, perfidy, and treachery die, but Poland does not die;
that the oppressor's destiny is ruin, that Roman triumphs and
Rome's glory die, but Poland does not die; that at the judg-
ment hour the thunderbolt of victory shall hurl the executioners
to earth, that sinning centuries and sinning worlds shall die--
but Poland does not die.
Again on Elisa Krasinska's name-day in 1856, the
poet tells her that "in the flowerless winter of the
world":
Flowers in my soul do ever grow to thee amidst pain's
winters, because thou art my spring, because thou art the last
sun of my life. All has deceived me ere my days shall end.
Thou only on this earth hast not deceived me. Thy form lies
not to those who gaze on thee, when thine eyes' light, the
radiance of thy brow, proclaim the angel in thy soul. All I
have seen was but a dream, a breath, a vapour. Thou only art
no mirage; yet in thee the beauty of the ideal is. Then let
me fall upon my knees before thee, and let my painstricken
lips sigh forth, seeking in all humility thy garment's hem:
"Thou beauty art. " St Elizabeth's Day (Nov. 19th, 1856).
And on the same occasion of her feast-day two
years before his death, the last lines with one exception
that Krasinski ever wrote were again to " My Elisa":
a cry of repentance and reparation.
Once did I dream that I was on the heights of bliss. I
thought I was in the heaven of an inspiration without end: and
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? Resurrecturis
309
yet I squandered all my life to nought, only because I did
not love thee.
Oh! woe unto those hearts to whom it seemeth that the
fires of sin are but the flame of youth: because their skies and
paradise shall turn to ashes for them, eternal bitterness shall
be their life.
Oh! woe unto those hearts by passion riddled. Even
should an angel to their life descend, their future poisoned is
with their past guilt, and an angelic happiness itself shall only
pain them.
Oh! woe unto my heart because it lived on bitter bread,
watered with tears of rage. Tell me, thou who to-day art my
soul's only strength, why in the past did I not love thee?
Purest of peace on thy white brow, high o'er the billows of
the turmoils of the earth; sweetest of mournfulness within thine
eyes. Why in the past did I not love thee?
Oh, be to me henceforth the guide of my existence! Oh,
be to me henceforth the ideal of all beauty! The poison of this
life I have drunk unto its dregs; only because I did not love
thee.
The treasure of my powers has fallen into nought. My
mind has been divorced from inspired flame. My light went
out, I have withered from boundless grief, only because I did
not love thee.
And I gaze often with despairing eyes upon my past, lying
a dead windfall, where are no immortal deeds of mine; only
because I did not love thee.
Oh! look on me! Thou art on high, and I below. Let
death not be for ever my only part. Take from my forehead
with thy hand the pains of life; because now for ever I have
loved thee. To My Elisa (Baden-Baden, St Elizabeth's Day.
Nov. 19th, 1857).
The outer events of Krasinski's declining years were
the Crimean war with, first the hopes, then the bitter
disillusion that it brought to Polish hearts; the death of
Adam Mickiewicz in Turkey while arming a Polish
legion to fight in the war on the side of France and
England;--Krasinski admired him with enthusiasm
as the great poet and leader of his nation, although
he was not in entire agreement with certain of his
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? 310 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
views1; the grievous loss of his youngest child in her
fourth year. In his letters to his friends, often not
written with his own hand but dictated in a condition
bordering on blindness, the poet's deep and increasing
religious faith is very noticeable. In his Roman Easter
of 1852 he writes to Cieszkowski:
I found your letter this morning on my return from
receiving the most Blessed Sacrament. Believe me, there is
something above nature in Confession and Communion. . . All
pain (and whose life is not pain! ) must in the end have recourse
for relief to them. This earth is the pain of pains ; if God did
not frequently come down to it and give Himself to lips
hungering for Him, it would be hell3.
In a later letter, after expressing his trust in Divine
Providence, he adds:
My dear, dear August, the further we go into the forest of
life, the more are there of thorny trees, the fewer flowers and
shrubs and kindlier verdure. But the teaching of life is that
God guides all, that He is at the helm, and men only row, and
that submission to that Most Holy Will is man's only strength3.
Such is the tenor of Krasinski's confidences to his
friends. And still, despite every loss and disappointment
and suffering, his faith in the resurrection of his country
that he knew he would not live to see never failed him
as he sank into his grave. To quote in detail what he
wrote upon this subject to his confidants in the end span
of his life would involve too much repetition of what
has been already said : but among his last letters to his
tried and beloved friends, Ko2mian and Sottan, there
1 "Adam has gone from among us. At that news my heart broke. He
was one of the pillars upholding the edifice, composed not of stones but
of so many living and bleeding hearts. The greatest poet, not only of
the nation but of all the Slavonic races, is no more. " Letters to Sottan.
Baden, Dec. 5, 1855. For further details on Krasinski's relations with
Mickiewicz, see my Adam Mickienvicz.
2 Letters to Cieszkowski. April 12, 1852, Easter Monday.
3 Ibid. Heidelberg, Feb. 6, 1855.
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? Resurrecturis 311
are two passages that bear the dignity and the supreme
final outlook of dying words, with which we close our
studies in the Anonymous Poet's correspondence. To
Kozmian he writes in April, 1856:
The upright disappear, great figures are shattered and, fall
into the abyss of the past. Puppets or the unworthy remain:
but in spite of all this our faith should remain one and the
same. All these are only tests--the necessary tests of Resur-
recturis. Without such there is no resurrectio1.
For Soitan he records the saying he loved and
which well typifies the character of his life:
Once more I beseech you do not think gloomily about our
cause.
Speravit contra spent: that is a great and holy word of
the sacred Scriptures3.
He still from time to time gathered his sinking
strength to address eloquent pleas for his nation to
influential personages; to the aunt of Napoleon III,
Stephanie, Grand Duchess of Baden, of whom the poet
was a personal friend; to Napoleon III himself. In
1857 and 1858 Krasinski pleaded personally with
Napoleon on behalf of Poland in two private audiences,
of which he left a full account among his papers, and
which was published for the first time in the Jubilee
edition. These written appeals have that stamp of
spiritualized patriotism, the high sense of Poland's call-
ing, and--in the letters to the Grand Duchess--the
conviction of miracle triumphant over earthly obstacle
and against human probability, that we find in all Kra-
sinski's work, linked to the clear, calm political reasoning
with which he viewed the European situation, and which,
says Count Tarnowski, was so unerring that events
proved him a true prophet3.
1 Letters to Kozmian. Baden, April 3, 1856.
2 Letters to Sot tan. Baden, April 14, 1856.
3 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 312 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
Among his manuscripts were also found a few other
papers in prose that were written at this time, all on
the Polish question, and some unfinished verses. These
latter were probably, according to the editors of the
Jubilee edition, intended to be worked out into a longer
poem, and then given to Poland as a piece of spiritual
guidance. They are ascribed by the same critics to
1858, the year preceding Krasinski's death. Although
at the end of a life of bitter national grief, the Anony-
mous Poet here speaks in quiet sadness of his country
as an outcast, abandoned by all except her faithful
companions of " wrong and deception," whose children
are tempted within and without her boundaries, he
addresses her as ever : " My Polish nation arising from
the dead. " He repeats to her the language of his Re-
surrecturis, begging her to believe that: "in the end
there is only victory where is virtue, only resurrection
where is Golgotha. He only shall make his enemies
his footstool who hath loved much and suffered much. "
He points to the calamities that have fallen on France
as her penalty for abandoning Poland. "I saw, oh,
Lord, how earthly causes are as perishing grain, mown
down in the evening though in the morning it was green.
Rulers and sovereigns end. Virtue alone knows no
end. " Once more he looks to Christ crucified and to
the reign of the Holy Spirit. "The last tears are falling
from men's eyes, and the last fetters from men's hands.
Sleep still, oh, earth! Thy Lord shall wake thee soon. "
In thy Rebirth from Death to Life (1858).
These were Krasinski's lastlines. Inthe vain journey
made from place to place to save his life, he halted with
his wife and children in the winter of 1858 at Paris on
the way to Algiers. In November Wincenty Krasinski
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? Resurrecturis
313
died in Poland, his dying son being unable to attend
his deathbed. Shattered with grief at his father's loss,
in the intervals of physical suffering Zygmunt spent the
last weeks of his life struggling to write a memoir of
Wincenty Krasinski: but this work, by which he in-
tended to vindicate the General's memory, could never
be carried through. He survived his father scarcely
three months. On the 23rd of February, 1859, at the
age of forty-seven, the Anonymous Poet of Poland
laid down the burden of the life that had been given to
his nation and fellow-men.
We need add little more. The summing up of Kra-
sinski's life and work is to be found not merely in his
own words; in his revelation of the sublimest of national
idealisms and of the history of a soul that ennobled and
conquered suffering both for himself and for his people,
told in the language of a great poet; but also in the
testimony borne by his fellow-Poles to what his teach-
ing has done for themselves and for their country. So
recently as the eve of the European war Polish political
writers have urged upon their persecuted nation the
moral of Iridion1. In Krasinski's writings, banned by
the government of the Tsars in Poland, smuggled as
penal contraband into the country for which they were
intended, young Poles have learnt the defence and
guidance of their souls amidst the unspeakable tempta-
tions by which their youth--the youth of the oppressed
--has been beset. They can look back to the day when
Krasinski's words, carried to them in secret over the
frontier, first reached their hands as the day of their
spiritual awakening2. Sons of Polish exiles, born and
1 E. Starczewski, L Europe el la Pologne. Paris, 1913.
2 M. Zdziechowski, The Vision of Krasinski, Cracow, 1912, where the
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? 3 H The Anonymous Poet of Poland
brought up in a foreign land, living under foreign
influences, who have never beheld their own country,
tell us that to their studies of Krasinski they in great
part owe the preservation of their own intense Polish
nationality. In these things resides the immortality of
the Anonymous Poet of Poland.
author, a distinguished Polish professor, describes as above the effect upon
his character of Krasinski's works. They were brought to him in his boy-
hood by one of the ladies of his family, hidden in her petticoats to elude
the Russian police.
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? BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
L BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM
Jo? zef Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasin? ski: Zycie i Two? rczos? c? Lat
M? odych (1812-1838). 2 vols. Lwo? w, 1904.
Juliusz Kleiner, Zygmunt Krasin? ski: Dzieje Mys? li. 2 vols.
Lwo? w, 1912.
Count Stanis? aw Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasin? ski. Cracow,
1892, and later edition of same, Cracow, 1912.
Maryan Zdziechowski, Byron i jego Wiek. 2 vols. Cracow,
1894-97.
Maryan Zdziechowski, Mesyanis? ci i Siowianojile. Cracow,
1888.
Maryan Zdziechowski, Wizya Krasin? skiego. Cracow, 1912.
M. Mazanowski, Zygmunt Krasin? ski. Lwo? w.
Julian Klaczko, La Poc? sie Polonaise au Dix-Neuvieme Siecle
et le Poete Anonyme. Revue des Deux Mondes. 1862.
Adam Mickiewicz, Les Slaves. Paris, Musee Adam Mickiewicz,
1914.
T. Pini, Zygmunta Krasin? skiego tak zwany "Niedokon? czony
Poemat'' Pro? ba Genezy. Lwo? w, 1896.
Gabriel Sarrazin, Les Grands Poetes Romantiques de la Pologne.
Paris, 1906.
Pamie? tnik Literacki. Zeszyt Jubileuszowy Krasin? skiemu
pos? wie? cony. Lwo? w, Feb. 19, 1912.
F. Hoesick, Mi? os? c? w Z? yciu Zygmunta Krasin? skiego. Cracow,
1909.
II. CORRESPONDENCE OF KRASIN? SKI
Correspondance de Sigismond Krasin? ski et de Henry Reeve.
Preface de J. Kallenbach. 2 vols. Paris, 1902.
Wyja? tki z Listo? w Zygmunta Krasin? skiego. Paris, i860.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do Konstantego Gaszyn? skiego.
Lwo? w, 1882.
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? 3i6 Bibliographical Note
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do A dama So? tana. Lwo? w, 188 3.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do J. S? owackiego, etc. Lwo? w,
1887.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do Stanis? awa Ma? achowskiego.
Cracow, 1885.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do Augusta Cieszkowskiego. 2
vols. Cracow, 1912.
Zygmunt Krasin? ski. Listy do St. Koz? miana. Lwo? w, 1912.
Zygmunt Krasin? ski i Ary Scheffer. Listy z Nieznanych
Re? kopiso? w. Ed.
? Resurrecturis
305
of the body, the worthlessness of mind. So shall we be counted
among the stupid and the happy.
Oh, let it not be so! My soul, draw back, oh, stay! Not
with that weapon at the head of all humanity shall the van-
quishers of evil pursue evil without mercy. One only power
in the world, the quiet might of sacrifice, shall crush the
crushing fate. This is the lion of the history of the world.
Pride or abasement are but chaff which each breath of history
casts into the pit.
Oh, know thyself for what thou art. Crave not for the
mastery which is His Who is in heaven, nor choose to be as
the brute beast fattening on the fields of pasture. On this
side the grave, before the resurrection dawns, be thou in man
the suffering which is of heaven, be thou the masterpiece of
unbent will, be patience, mistress of misfortune that slowly
buildeth up her edifice from nought. Be thou defeat, of
distant aim, but which at last shall conquer for all ages.
Be peace amidst the raving of the storm, order in chaos,
harmony in discord. Be thou eternal beauty in the eternal
war of life. Only for vile men and for Pharisees be menace,
wrath, or silence sanctified; and with dissimulation have no
league. But for all others be an angel's breath. Be thou the
sustenance that giveth life to hearts. Be as a sister's tears to
those that mourn, the voice of manhood when their courage
faints. Be home to those who are driven forth from home,
hope to those who have lost their hope, and to those sleeping
in a death-like sleep be thou the awakening thunderblast.
In the struggle with this hell of earth be ever, everywhere the
strength that against death prevails by the stronger strength
of love. Be thou the hell of love1.
In the unceasing form of word and pattern give thine own
self forth freely to thy brothers. Multiply thy one self by
living deeds, and thousands from thy one self shall rise. Be
even in chains unwearied toil. Let every pain, albeit it be
pain, not pain thee. Be thou thy whole nation in thy one
heart. Be thou the miracle uniting heaven to earth--be
sanctity in bondage.
Hasten not to death till, seed in the soil, thy thought
is sown in hearts, and brings forth fruit. So long as thy
own martyrdom assures not victory, thy martyrdom will be
to thy good only, not to humanity's. Shun martyrdom! The
1 Meaning the colossal power of love. Against the objection of the
critics to the term Krasinski stated that it was not his but St Theresa's.
See Letters to St. Kozmian.
G.
20
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? 306 The A nonymous Poet of Poland
garlands of vain glory are grasped by madmen, into the gulf
of danger heroes leap, but the soul's higher strength heedeth
not these illusions.
Only then, when the bell of events, wailing, summoneth
thee to sacrifice thyself for their redemption, and thou, hearing
the earth's call, fallest with thy soul in humble penitence at the
dividing threshold of two worlds, and in thy soul sent thither
by God flows in the silence God's inspiring voice, then rise:
and as the champion who has reached the lists shake from thy
feet the dust from off this earth. Rise, and from the love which,
when it loveth dies, lift to the heavens thy upsoaring hands.
Rise, and to the executioners, hastening on thee, hasten thou
first; and calmly, sweetly, peacefully welcome those guests,
unmourning, with the pitying gaze of thy immortal soul. Then
end with thy rich witness in the future. Be by thy death the
highest bloom of life. What the world called dream and
mirage make thou awake and living, make of it faith, make
of it law, make of it what is certain, tangible, a holy thing
that as a poniard penetrates to hearts to pierce there with-
out end, moving them albeit only by the breath of sighs: until
the world, thy murderer, shall kneel, confessing that God and
country are the conscience of the nations.
When thy thought takes the crimson of thy body's flowing
blood, thy thought shall be the stream of life flashing on high,
God's judgment on the godless multitudes below. Nor man
nor cannon shall keep it back, nor falsehood nor deception,
genius or glory, kings or peoples. And in the third span, on
thy suffering's grave, out of the deluge of events, over the
abyss of sorrows the unborn shall be born--and justice rise1.
Resurrecturis was Krasinski's favourite among his
poems. From the time it appeared, overpowered by
physical sufferings, he could speak no more to his
nation. Yet during these last years he occasionally
wrote lyrics, intimate and sacred, but not for the public
gaze. They are his poems to his wife. It has been
pointed out that the character of Krasinski's love
poems is their passion and virility, which never degene-
1 This last stanza has another reading in Krasinski's original MS. of
1846: "When thy thought shall take flesh from thy body's flowing blood,
thy thought shall be a sacrament, and in the third span they shall not find
thee in thy grave. God now is with thee, God now is in thee. "
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? Resurrecturis
307
rate into sentimentality1. We have already drawn
attention to another peculiarity that distinguishes them;
they are the love poems of a patriot. The poet had
uttered into the ears of his Beatrice his grief for Poland,
illumined by the hope that had risen upon him from
her look. As he neared his end it was his wife who
was the recipient of the deepest and noblest love of his
manhood and of the same high ardour of patriotism, but
one that had been tried and proved victorious in the
furnace of life2. During the winter of 1851-52, which
Krasinski and his family passed in Rome, the poet was
not only in fast declining health, but the victim of
profound melancholy. Yet the Eternal City that had
inspired his Iridion still had even in the midst of his
sadness its message for him and Poland: and in the
spring he wrote that most beautiful of poems, known
in the earlier editions as Roma, but which Krasinski
himself simply calls in his manuscript: To Elisa.
Oh, my loved, lovely one, blessed be thou, because tempted
by the infernal foes thou hast trodden their false allurements
unceasingly beneath thy feet. Oh, my loved, lovely one,
blessed be thou, because upon thy brow thou bearest not the
crown of pride, but the thorn of Polish woes and thoughts of
Christ. Oh, Polish wife of mine, blessed be thou because, while
the world is perishing and our country dies, thou hast among
the whirlwinds of our time believed in hope, even against hope
itself. Oh, Polish wife of mine, blessed be thou, because when
the veil of time is rent asunder that hitherto conceals God's
thought in space, they shall not be defeated who are conquered
now, they shall not sorrow who shed tears to-day.
See, what around thee in the Roman plains is left of pride.
Amidst a desert the turbid Tiber flows through ruins. And
here in gold and purple the unjust trod. To-day the marbles
of their temples sleep in the mire above their dust. And here
they said: "We shall blot out the nations. Only Rome shall
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Op. cit.
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? 308 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
live. " See in their circuses flocks feed and ivy crawls. Read
from the ruins of the Campagna which was Rome's that Poland
shall not die. Power without love is like to smoke: not we,
but it, shall pass. As from yon catacombs that lie beneath the
earth the cross victorious rose, so we shall from the grave go
with victorious steps, immortalized by pain. Oh! let my
witness be the nation's Forum, changed to a desert vale; let
my witness be these sundered heads of the Corinthian pillars,
these statues of the gods shattered to fragments, these Thermae,
arches, aqueducts, transformed to wild and shapeless rocks.
Let my witness be tombs without end from hill to hill. Let
my witness be all that is here both far and near, on height or
plain, the light of heaven and the human ruins, that Poland
shall not die--that there is an avenging spirit that at God's
decree pierces the deep heart of the history of mankind, that
falsehood, perfidy, and treachery die, but Poland does not die;
that the oppressor's destiny is ruin, that Roman triumphs and
Rome's glory die, but Poland does not die; that at the judg-
ment hour the thunderbolt of victory shall hurl the executioners
to earth, that sinning centuries and sinning worlds shall die--
but Poland does not die.
Again on Elisa Krasinska's name-day in 1856, the
poet tells her that "in the flowerless winter of the
world":
Flowers in my soul do ever grow to thee amidst pain's
winters, because thou art my spring, because thou art the last
sun of my life. All has deceived me ere my days shall end.
Thou only on this earth hast not deceived me. Thy form lies
not to those who gaze on thee, when thine eyes' light, the
radiance of thy brow, proclaim the angel in thy soul. All I
have seen was but a dream, a breath, a vapour. Thou only art
no mirage; yet in thee the beauty of the ideal is. Then let
me fall upon my knees before thee, and let my painstricken
lips sigh forth, seeking in all humility thy garment's hem:
"Thou beauty art. " St Elizabeth's Day (Nov. 19th, 1856).
And on the same occasion of her feast-day two
years before his death, the last lines with one exception
that Krasinski ever wrote were again to " My Elisa":
a cry of repentance and reparation.
Once did I dream that I was on the heights of bliss. I
thought I was in the heaven of an inspiration without end: and
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? Resurrecturis
309
yet I squandered all my life to nought, only because I did
not love thee.
Oh! woe unto those hearts to whom it seemeth that the
fires of sin are but the flame of youth: because their skies and
paradise shall turn to ashes for them, eternal bitterness shall
be their life.
Oh! woe unto those hearts by passion riddled. Even
should an angel to their life descend, their future poisoned is
with their past guilt, and an angelic happiness itself shall only
pain them.
Oh! woe unto my heart because it lived on bitter bread,
watered with tears of rage. Tell me, thou who to-day art my
soul's only strength, why in the past did I not love thee?
Purest of peace on thy white brow, high o'er the billows of
the turmoils of the earth; sweetest of mournfulness within thine
eyes. Why in the past did I not love thee?
Oh, be to me henceforth the guide of my existence! Oh,
be to me henceforth the ideal of all beauty! The poison of this
life I have drunk unto its dregs; only because I did not love
thee.
The treasure of my powers has fallen into nought. My
mind has been divorced from inspired flame. My light went
out, I have withered from boundless grief, only because I did
not love thee.
And I gaze often with despairing eyes upon my past, lying
a dead windfall, where are no immortal deeds of mine; only
because I did not love thee.
Oh! look on me! Thou art on high, and I below. Let
death not be for ever my only part. Take from my forehead
with thy hand the pains of life; because now for ever I have
loved thee. To My Elisa (Baden-Baden, St Elizabeth's Day.
Nov. 19th, 1857).
The outer events of Krasinski's declining years were
the Crimean war with, first the hopes, then the bitter
disillusion that it brought to Polish hearts; the death of
Adam Mickiewicz in Turkey while arming a Polish
legion to fight in the war on the side of France and
England;--Krasinski admired him with enthusiasm
as the great poet and leader of his nation, although
he was not in entire agreement with certain of his
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? 310 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
views1; the grievous loss of his youngest child in her
fourth year. In his letters to his friends, often not
written with his own hand but dictated in a condition
bordering on blindness, the poet's deep and increasing
religious faith is very noticeable. In his Roman Easter
of 1852 he writes to Cieszkowski:
I found your letter this morning on my return from
receiving the most Blessed Sacrament. Believe me, there is
something above nature in Confession and Communion. . . All
pain (and whose life is not pain! ) must in the end have recourse
for relief to them. This earth is the pain of pains ; if God did
not frequently come down to it and give Himself to lips
hungering for Him, it would be hell3.
In a later letter, after expressing his trust in Divine
Providence, he adds:
My dear, dear August, the further we go into the forest of
life, the more are there of thorny trees, the fewer flowers and
shrubs and kindlier verdure. But the teaching of life is that
God guides all, that He is at the helm, and men only row, and
that submission to that Most Holy Will is man's only strength3.
Such is the tenor of Krasinski's confidences to his
friends. And still, despite every loss and disappointment
and suffering, his faith in the resurrection of his country
that he knew he would not live to see never failed him
as he sank into his grave. To quote in detail what he
wrote upon this subject to his confidants in the end span
of his life would involve too much repetition of what
has been already said : but among his last letters to his
tried and beloved friends, Ko2mian and Sottan, there
1 "Adam has gone from among us. At that news my heart broke. He
was one of the pillars upholding the edifice, composed not of stones but
of so many living and bleeding hearts. The greatest poet, not only of
the nation but of all the Slavonic races, is no more. " Letters to Sottan.
Baden, Dec. 5, 1855. For further details on Krasinski's relations with
Mickiewicz, see my Adam Mickienvicz.
2 Letters to Cieszkowski. April 12, 1852, Easter Monday.
3 Ibid. Heidelberg, Feb. 6, 1855.
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? Resurrecturis 311
are two passages that bear the dignity and the supreme
final outlook of dying words, with which we close our
studies in the Anonymous Poet's correspondence. To
Kozmian he writes in April, 1856:
The upright disappear, great figures are shattered and, fall
into the abyss of the past. Puppets or the unworthy remain:
but in spite of all this our faith should remain one and the
same. All these are only tests--the necessary tests of Resur-
recturis. Without such there is no resurrectio1.
For Soitan he records the saying he loved and
which well typifies the character of his life:
Once more I beseech you do not think gloomily about our
cause.
Speravit contra spent: that is a great and holy word of
the sacred Scriptures3.
He still from time to time gathered his sinking
strength to address eloquent pleas for his nation to
influential personages; to the aunt of Napoleon III,
Stephanie, Grand Duchess of Baden, of whom the poet
was a personal friend; to Napoleon III himself. In
1857 and 1858 Krasinski pleaded personally with
Napoleon on behalf of Poland in two private audiences,
of which he left a full account among his papers, and
which was published for the first time in the Jubilee
edition. These written appeals have that stamp of
spiritualized patriotism, the high sense of Poland's call-
ing, and--in the letters to the Grand Duchess--the
conviction of miracle triumphant over earthly obstacle
and against human probability, that we find in all Kra-
sinski's work, linked to the clear, calm political reasoning
with which he viewed the European situation, and which,
says Count Tarnowski, was so unerring that events
proved him a true prophet3.
1 Letters to Kozmian. Baden, April 3, 1856.
2 Letters to Sot tan. Baden, April 14, 1856.
3 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 312 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
Among his manuscripts were also found a few other
papers in prose that were written at this time, all on
the Polish question, and some unfinished verses. These
latter were probably, according to the editors of the
Jubilee edition, intended to be worked out into a longer
poem, and then given to Poland as a piece of spiritual
guidance. They are ascribed by the same critics to
1858, the year preceding Krasinski's death. Although
at the end of a life of bitter national grief, the Anony-
mous Poet here speaks in quiet sadness of his country
as an outcast, abandoned by all except her faithful
companions of " wrong and deception," whose children
are tempted within and without her boundaries, he
addresses her as ever : " My Polish nation arising from
the dead. " He repeats to her the language of his Re-
surrecturis, begging her to believe that: "in the end
there is only victory where is virtue, only resurrection
where is Golgotha. He only shall make his enemies
his footstool who hath loved much and suffered much. "
He points to the calamities that have fallen on France
as her penalty for abandoning Poland. "I saw, oh,
Lord, how earthly causes are as perishing grain, mown
down in the evening though in the morning it was green.
Rulers and sovereigns end. Virtue alone knows no
end. " Once more he looks to Christ crucified and to
the reign of the Holy Spirit. "The last tears are falling
from men's eyes, and the last fetters from men's hands.
Sleep still, oh, earth! Thy Lord shall wake thee soon. "
In thy Rebirth from Death to Life (1858).
These were Krasinski's lastlines. Inthe vain journey
made from place to place to save his life, he halted with
his wife and children in the winter of 1858 at Paris on
the way to Algiers. In November Wincenty Krasinski
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? Resurrecturis
313
died in Poland, his dying son being unable to attend
his deathbed. Shattered with grief at his father's loss,
in the intervals of physical suffering Zygmunt spent the
last weeks of his life struggling to write a memoir of
Wincenty Krasinski: but this work, by which he in-
tended to vindicate the General's memory, could never
be carried through. He survived his father scarcely
three months. On the 23rd of February, 1859, at the
age of forty-seven, the Anonymous Poet of Poland
laid down the burden of the life that had been given to
his nation and fellow-men.
We need add little more. The summing up of Kra-
sinski's life and work is to be found not merely in his
own words; in his revelation of the sublimest of national
idealisms and of the history of a soul that ennobled and
conquered suffering both for himself and for his people,
told in the language of a great poet; but also in the
testimony borne by his fellow-Poles to what his teach-
ing has done for themselves and for their country. So
recently as the eve of the European war Polish political
writers have urged upon their persecuted nation the
moral of Iridion1. In Krasinski's writings, banned by
the government of the Tsars in Poland, smuggled as
penal contraband into the country for which they were
intended, young Poles have learnt the defence and
guidance of their souls amidst the unspeakable tempta-
tions by which their youth--the youth of the oppressed
--has been beset. They can look back to the day when
Krasinski's words, carried to them in secret over the
frontier, first reached their hands as the day of their
spiritual awakening2. Sons of Polish exiles, born and
1 E. Starczewski, L Europe el la Pologne. Paris, 1913.
2 M. Zdziechowski, The Vision of Krasinski, Cracow, 1912, where the
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? 3 H The Anonymous Poet of Poland
brought up in a foreign land, living under foreign
influences, who have never beheld their own country,
tell us that to their studies of Krasinski they in great
part owe the preservation of their own intense Polish
nationality. In these things resides the immortality of
the Anonymous Poet of Poland.
author, a distinguished Polish professor, describes as above the effect upon
his character of Krasinski's works. They were brought to him in his boy-
hood by one of the ladies of his family, hidden in her petticoats to elude
the Russian police.
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? BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
L BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM
Jo? zef Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasin? ski: Zycie i Two? rczos? c? Lat
M? odych (1812-1838). 2 vols. Lwo? w, 1904.
Juliusz Kleiner, Zygmunt Krasin? ski: Dzieje Mys? li. 2 vols.
Lwo? w, 1912.
Count Stanis? aw Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasin? ski. Cracow,
1892, and later edition of same, Cracow, 1912.
Maryan Zdziechowski, Byron i jego Wiek. 2 vols. Cracow,
1894-97.
Maryan Zdziechowski, Mesyanis? ci i Siowianojile. Cracow,
1888.
Maryan Zdziechowski, Wizya Krasin? skiego. Cracow, 1912.
M. Mazanowski, Zygmunt Krasin? ski. Lwo? w.
Julian Klaczko, La Poc? sie Polonaise au Dix-Neuvieme Siecle
et le Poete Anonyme. Revue des Deux Mondes. 1862.
Adam Mickiewicz, Les Slaves. Paris, Musee Adam Mickiewicz,
1914.
T. Pini, Zygmunta Krasin? skiego tak zwany "Niedokon? czony
Poemat'' Pro? ba Genezy. Lwo? w, 1896.
Gabriel Sarrazin, Les Grands Poetes Romantiques de la Pologne.
Paris, 1906.
Pamie? tnik Literacki. Zeszyt Jubileuszowy Krasin? skiemu
pos? wie? cony. Lwo? w, Feb. 19, 1912.
F. Hoesick, Mi? os? c? w Z? yciu Zygmunta Krasin? skiego. Cracow,
1909.
II. CORRESPONDENCE OF KRASIN? SKI
Correspondance de Sigismond Krasin? ski et de Henry Reeve.
Preface de J. Kallenbach. 2 vols. Paris, 1902.
Wyja? tki z Listo? w Zygmunta Krasin? skiego. Paris, i860.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do Konstantego Gaszyn? skiego.
Lwo? w, 1882.
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? 3i6 Bibliographical Note
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do A dama So? tana. Lwo? w, 188 3.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do J. S? owackiego, etc. Lwo? w,
1887.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do Stanis? awa Ma? achowskiego.
Cracow, 1885.
Listy Zygmunta Krasin? skiego do Augusta Cieszkowskiego. 2
vols. Cracow, 1912.
Zygmunt Krasin? ski. Listy do St. Koz? miana. Lwo? w, 1912.
Zygmunt Krasin? ski i Ary Scheffer. Listy z Nieznanych
Re? kopiso? w. Ed.
