Shine down into these
depths still tenanted by darkness ; throw thy glittering
bridges of rainbows from bank to bank across the white
torrents !
depths still tenanted by darkness ; throw thy glittering
bridges of rainbows from bank to bank across the white
torrents !
Krasinski - The Undivine Comedy
It is, in the first place, utterly
different in numbers ; it is not a class, but an entire popu-
lation. It was the only element which in the past had
been able to develop fully in itself the consciousness of its
own nationality; and at present it is the class of the pro-
prietors, the land-owners (of which the Polish nobility
consists), which bears in its breast the historic traditions
as well as the vivid prevision of the Future of Poland. It
constitutes the moral antl intellectual force of the country;
it issimjily its " tiers-elat," — for Poland has had no other:
and instead of being opposed to modern progress and
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
117
principles, it leans too fnuch for safety to modern ideas !
To propose the destruction of such a nobility was — as the
Anonymous Poet justly asserted — " to commit self-mur-
der, in order, after our suicide, to act and conquer. " It
was, nevertheless, recommended by the democratic propa-
ganda, which called upon the people to rise as one man
to deliver the country, to make way with every suspected
proprietor at the commencement of the insurrection, to
divide the lands of the nobles, who had no right to na-
tional life at all except in so far as tliey made part of the
people. And what was most tragically fantastic in this
melancholy attempt was, that its apostles, as well as its
disciples, were themselves of the nobility, for the demo-
cratic propaganda had no influence whatever among the
peasants, neither by its publications nor its emissaries; it
addressed itself to the proprietors, to the gentlemen of the
country ; it was by them it was so eagerly received, and
through them organized into a vast conspiracy, ready to
break out at a given signal. That the Polish nobility
should have so magnanimously and almost so universally
accepted the word of command from Paris, which sounded
for themselves the knell of spoliation and death, while it
certainly argues a great want of political intelligence, also
incontestabiy proves into what deep and hopeless despair
the country had been driven by foreign domination : it
must prove also above all else how cruel and unjust were
the declamations then made — as indeed they still are —
against the selfish and aristocratic spirit of this poor Polish
nobility, generous enough to accept even communism,
sufficiently devoted to what it believed to be the interest
of the country to subscribe to its ozan suicide ; which sfjirit
the Powers of the North at the time of the dismember-
ment, as also Nicholas in 1831, denounced as confirmed
Jacobinism.
It is difficult to imagine the rapidity and extent of the
democratic movement which then seized upon Poland,
the result of which, for any clear-sighted mind, could
only be a powerless insurrection, aggravated by social
rupture and distraction. How heart-rending the situa-
tion of the Anonymous Poet in such events ! It can-
not be denied that some of his poems, magnanimous and
II
Ii8 POLISH POETRY IN
sublime as they are, — especially those which appeared
after " Iridion," — have erred through an excess of spir-
itual optimism ; that his poetry forgot too much the con-
ditions of this world ; that it evangelized and ange/ized
men with too little regard to their situation and duty as
citizens ; and that the influence of these works is still,
in more than one respect, enervating for young souls.
Alas ! the Poet was soon to be cruelly recalled from these
ethereal and cloudy spheres by the most bitter reality;
a period of two years only intervened between the en-
trancing visions of " The Dawn" and the heart-rending
lamentations of ''The Psalms of the Future" (1845).
This " Christ of Nations," proclaimed so near its Resur-
rection, with its mission of new life to enslaved Nations,
must now be preserved from suicide ! Our Poet did not
shrink from this painful duty, and, if we consider his
personal position and the general state of the public
mind, it was in him a great act of civic courage. He
brought to the fulfillment of this task all the fire, elo-
quence, logic, and passion of his heart. The first two
Hymns are still kept in the realms of the Future ; he
again represents to the Nation the ideal which God cre-
ated her to realize; but in the third Psalm he enters
upon the fiery questions of the moment ; exposes the
elements of the propaganda, resolution by resolution ;
boldly pronounces the words, " Massacre of the nobles,"
which might be found in the logic of the new doctrines,
or in the progress of events. To the " conventioners"
of the Convention, who were always calling for vigorous
acts, he declared that murders were no actions ; that de-
struction was not regeneration; that there was but one
true law of public safety for the nation: "the Polish
nobles with the Polish people. '^ After having recalled the
eternal principles of justice and humanity, he undertakes
the defense of the Polish nobility, then so loudly decried
by a blinded radicalism. Was it not the nobility whose
breast forever bloomed into scars and gashes? Was it
not always ready to offer up itself in holocaust upon the
altar of the country? Had it not even consented to sui-
cide? In the great Diet of 1791, who ojiened to the
people the golden doors of the Future ? Was it not this
THE NINE TEE. y Til CENTURY.
119
maligned race of nobles — a race which had never con-
sented to a truce with the oppressor — which had offered
itself as autumn grain to be harvested on every battle-
field, and which had actually peopled Siberia ?
"Everywhere, everywhere upon this globe, I see the
footprints of my brothers, and your words will never be
able to efface them. It is they whom the world has per-
secuted ', it is they whom the hangmen have tortured ; it
is they who forever wander in the polar snows, and who
crowd the dungeons of the citadels T
"Upon the arid peaks of the Alps, upon the billowy
azure of the Mediterranean, upon the Italian Apennines,
upon the summits of the Sierras of Spain, upon the wide
plains of Germany, upon the snows and ices of the Mos-
covites, upon the fields of friendly France, upon every
land, on every sea, they have scattered the seed of our
future country ; a seed divine, the blood of martyrs —
and you are the sons of their agonies ! "
The Anonymous Poet regards persecution as a small
ill ; the obscuration of truth is the real and terrible evil ;
the changes forced upon the true life of the national soul
by constant oppression, the reign of morbid and funereal
ideas, is the great misfortune. He says : "Alas ! slavery
distills a poison which decomposes the soul ! Siberia is
nothing; the knout is nothing; nothing the racks and
tortures which rend the body ; but alas for the spirit of
the nation when it is poisoned ! This is the most bitter
of all woes! " The poet conjures his country to repel
all evil counsels, all inspirations of despair, "Let the
demagogues howl on, the sophists whisper that a high
and mysterious aim may justify infamous means ; that the
happiness of ail h worth the death of t\\efe-aj; that love
may spring from a work of hate. . . . No ! no ! IVe
can build nothing of mire ; and the highest Wisdom is
Virtue J"
Thus, invoking the most glorious memories of the Past
for the salvation of the Present, passing from flashes of
anger to accents of soul-subduing pity, and placing all
his luxuriant imagination in the service of common sense,
did the inspired patriot continue to write. But it was a
voice in the desert ; it was lost without echo in the pros-
120 rOLISH POETRY hV
tration of the clear-sighted, and the disdainful silence of
the party of action. As too often happens in moments
of public excitement, our author was not jia/ged, he was
classed ; he was placed among the enemies of progress, —
and then all was over ! One man, however, broke the
silence to rejily to the singer of the " Psalms," to defend
the honor of the denounced propaganda, to avenge "the
outraged people," and this man was also a Bard, and for-
merly a friend of the Anonymous Poet. Of an ardent
and wayward temperament, consumed by a sombre mysti-
cism as well as by a haughty pride, exceedingly jealous,
uniting to a splendid imagination a power of language
never equaled, even by Mickiewicz, Julius Slowa^ki sud-
denly entered the lists, and gave to the propaganda what
had hitherto been wanting to it — the support of his
marvelous genius. Raillery, anger, disguised allusions,
stormy passions, true sufferings, and fictitious com-
plaints, all the flashing and sometimes poisoned weapons
of his brilliant armory, were made use of in his "Reply
to the Author of the Psalms. "
Let us cast a brief glance on this " Reply," as it is an
important element in this characteristic and almost na-
tional debate. Slowa(;ki therein calls back the author of
the "Psalms" to his visions in his " Dawn," to the final
cry in which he invokes "his actions," at the same time
cruelly satirizing the "seraphic doctrines of the noble
dreamer. ^' The double-bladed sword glitters from the
very commencement. "To believe thee, my ^<^(;v///c7//<7//,
it would be a virtue in us to endure slavery patiently !
Thou changest our sad existence in this valley of tears
into a life of pure and shadowy spirits in the silver
moon ; with the voice of an infant thou criest : 'Action !
action ! action ! ' And the nation prepares for it, and
thou instantly beginnest to tremble when the face of the
people appears, and when the voice of God resounds
from the burning bush ! " Slowa^ki continues : " Once,
the Elect of noble Poetry were the first to proclaim new
truths, and to excite the masses to the combat of freedom.
But now behold ! a great Lord, a grand singer, shows
himself as a ' proj^het of the people,' but in the mode of
the Ifcau mondc, as a highly fashionable Prophet ! He
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 121
places Christ in his poetic car as Ovid did his Phaeton,
and with light, rose-colored steeds, he traverses the aerial
depths of a harmless ideal ! When the universe is per-
ishing in agony, when the tide of action rises high, be-
hold I he places himself as barrier across it, forbids the
century itself to move, and from his breast, shivering
with fear, we only hear the hoarse, shrill cry, in the name
of the red God, wliomsoever thou mayst be : ' Kill not
the nobility! ' The nobility? But where may it be
found? By what mark sliall we recognize it? " In a
celebrated stanza, Slowa^ki, who more than once recalls
his own noble origin, denies that the Polish nobility is
still in existence, making only one injurious exception
for Prince Czartoryski, in attributing to him dynastic
ambition, — an accusation frequently brought against a
tried patriot by the ungrateful companions of his exile.
"Yes, you were once numerous; formerly there were
hundreds of thousands of your nobles ; nobles by heart
and bearing ! But in our days I have known but one
noble; the whole country has never seen another. He
alone, by the misery of his heart, by his intentions if
not by his success ;. by a silent, proud, and grand sad-
ness ; by a hand always full of gifts, by an antique, quiet
glory, was a noble, and had the right so to call himself.
And now he, the sole and only noble, has abandoned
your ranks ; he has himself resigned his dignity; he has
gone down to rot atnong the kings / He is no longer, and
you are no more ! "
It has always been the tactics of revolutionists to pre-
sent their programmes as utterly harmless ; and Slowagki
did not fail to follow this course. He boldly asks our
poet : Where he had ever heard massacre spoken of ; who
had threatened with the dagger? Mere visions of a
troubled brain were all such idle thoughts, hallucinations
of a frightened fancy. A plaintive tone had perhaps
reached him through the air; a (^///■w/1'^* celebrating the
ancient combats of the Zaparogues ; and you ivere afraid,
son of the noble ! or perhajjs some brilliant morning a ray
of sunshine pierced into the room of the Psalmist, made
* . \ Dirge from the Ukraine.
II*
122 POLISH POETRY IN
its way through the scarlet curtains of his sumptuous bed ;
and the lord-poet, suddenly awaked, thought he saw red,
— and y OK were a/raid, son of the noble! This ironic
refrain returns frequently through the poem, and has its
climax in the words whose envenomed cruelty will be
readily understood : "You owe respect to your parents ;
now the Polish People is your father, you have no other !
Fear it r^ Nevertheless Slowa^ki, while defending the
democracy from nourishing any thought of vengeance,
takes care not to tranquillize us too completely; on the
contrary, he calls upon all the powers of his vast and
fiery imagination to depict the abyss of misery and pain
in which society groans ; the debasement of character,
the profound eclipse of justice, the horrors of tyranny,
the arrogance of the rich, the anguish of the poor. To
bring back the moral world which has swung from its
orbit, to tear humanity from this abyss of shame and in-
famy, "who knows what the Spirit may deem necessary,"
— "the Spirit, the eternal Revolutionist who tortures
bodies and delivers souls? " "The sun always rises in its
clouds of purple, and all Dawns are bloody ! "
The "Reply" of Slowa(;ki had scarcely had time to
be known by the public when appalling events arose,
bearing to the author of the " Psalms" a far more serious
response. The insurrection so long in preparation by the
propaganda at last broke out ; it proved as powerless
against the enemy as murderous for the nation. It was
principally, however, in Galicia that the disastrous out-
break showed in its full force, manifesting itself under
entirely new forms. The bureaucracy established there,
as violent as it was perfidious, had been very careful to
take no measures to prevent the explosion ; it had, on the
contrary, fed the subterranean fire, and had taken the time
to complete the tuition of the peasants, so happily com-
menced by the propaganda. Since the proprietors were
so decidedly, and even by their own confession, such
ferocious enemies of the people, would it not be best to
put an immediate end to them by a terrible justice,
especially when the government was so ready to help
them, even paying a good sum of florins for every head
of a noble, and facilitating the undertaking still more by
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
123
a suspoision of the laws of God for fifteen days ? That the
Court of Vienna should have thus repaid the services
formerly rendered her by the country of Sobieski, is one
of those flagrant ingratitudes which, even after the aston-
ishment has worn off, still leave an undying memory.
And who can wonder that the Poles should see in the ca-
lamities which have successively overwhelmed the House
of Hapsburg since the date of the wrongs of 1846 the
just punishment of one of the greatest crimes ever regis-
tered in history? The effect of the massacres of Tarnow
and Rzeszow was immense in Poland, and the discourage-
ment greater than had ever been known there before,
even after the greatest disasters. And let us say it with-
out prevarication, Poland to this very hour still bleeds
from the wounds of Tarnow and Rzeszow ; the massa-
cres of Galicia still weigh upon her as a memory and an
apprehension ; they have rendered her motionless during
the last fifteen years ; and even at this moment have not
ceased to paralyze her action.
The jacquerie of 1846 was followed by a prostration
of spirit which was manifested in the world of thought
by a mournful silence, which lasted long, and was only
broken for a moment by the characteristic phenomenon
of the " Letter from a Polish gentleman to Prince Met-
ternich," in which the Marquis Wielopolski — since be-
come famous — for the first time proposed without dis-
guise, and with the concentration of despair, the question
of voluntary self-destruction in the bosom of a vengeful
panslavism. It is difficult to imagine with what a stifling
weight the sad events of 1846 pressed upon the soul of
the Anonymous Poet. It was two years before he was
able to write again. He then commenced a new series
of Psalms, in which he tried to pour balm into the wounds
still bleeding, and to light hope anew in hearts crushed to
earth. Aresponse was still due to Slowacjki, and he made
it with moderation, yet with force, but also with great
sadness. The reproach of cowardice made by Slowa^ki
weighed heavily upon the descendant of the Knights of
Bar. "Thou hast said it was fear that spoke in my soul
when I foresaw that we were moving toward the darkness,
and not toward the light ; and that the people might, in
124 POLISH POETRY IN
this path, bring disgrace upon themselves. Thou hast
spoken the truth ; there is a certain kind of courage of
which I cannot be proud. It is true, I do tremble at
the death of my fellow-men ; I love not to push them into
the abyss. At the sight of shame, it is true, a divine
terror seizes my heart ; assassins will never be to me as
brothers; I love the sword, but shudder at the knife! "
Our Author then begins the debate, discusses all the
destructive theories of Slowacjki, especially that of the
"Spirit eternally revolutionist" and "torturing bodies
to deliver souls. " He calls for a regeneration by a con-
tinuous development through love. He says, ingeniously:
"It is also a great sin, O Poet, to speak only ever of
the ^■p'wii, forgetting that He proceeds from the Father and
the Son; to abstract all the past generations, and to re-
nounce the painful work of the ages ! "
The solution of continuity between the epochs which
preceded the revolution and those which succeeded it, the
rupture of all traditions, the absence of all roots in the
heart of history, which caused the tree of the new life so
soon to wither and die, though we ceased not to water it
with our tears and blood, — all this has been noticed and
commented upon more than once in our time ; especially
after the catastrophe of February led us to scrutinize more
closely the problem of modern existence, and to seek
more deeply into the internal causes of the moral discon-
tent and dissatisfaction with which we are struggling.
Such truths were not generally perceived until our Poet
brought them to the light in his "Psalms," and in all cases
he has known how to give them ingenious and touching
forms in a manner peculiar to himself. He saw, in ad-
dition, the gulf constantly widening between the upper
and intelligent classes and the lower ranks ; the first
forced to draw back in order to preserve themselves, the
second having no hope save in forever pressing forward
toward the unknown ; he foresaw the possible, nay, im-
minent conflict between the two great European factions:
but he found even in this very conflict a cause for liope,
— and he continued to hope for his country. He believed
Poland was destined to counterbalance, by the character
of her instincts and the influence of her actions, "the
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 125
atrocious cowardice of the retrograde party, as well as
the frightful passions of the radicals. " Thus after a long
detour, and even through the bloody gulf of Tarnow, did
the author of the " Psalms" return to the radiant visions
of the " Dawn," exclaiming after, as before, the massa-
cre: **0 my country! watch and hope: love without
bounds is life without end P' . . . We may judge these
hopes of the Poet as we will, but we are forced to bow
reverently before the faith and charity which, after such
trials, were able to inspire such words !
At the date of the appearance of these new Psalms, the
revolution of February broke out, and soon had its counter-
stroke as far as in the capital of Austria. The Anonymous
Poet followed the progress of events closely, without mis-
understanding their importance, but without making the
least allusion to them. Faithful to his system, he re-
garded the present epoch as the painful birth of the second
Christian era; as preparing, to use the words of M. de
Maistre, "a new eruption of Christianity;" he saw even
in the events of 1848 the annunciation of the judgment
of God upon the two thousand years of Christianity, and of
a palingenesis according to the Gospel ; but in the imme-
diate future he could see nothing but misfortunes. The
nations appeared to him no wiser than their governments.
"There is no privilege before thee, O God ! Peoples as
well as kings, as soon as they become unfaithful to Thee,
are equally doomed to fall, — since even Thy Angels by
myriads fell I"
In the first days of the revolution of 1848, he pre-
dicted the horrors of June in an eloquent prophecy. His
presentiments went still further, and he believed he could
announce the hour in which the West of Europe, sapped
in its foundations and shaken in its faith in liberty, would
at last come to believe in the "truth of him who alone
remained firm and unshaken upon the rock of St. Peters-
burg. " Then would be, affirmed the Poet, the last, yet the
most cruel, trial of crucified Poland ; and he conjured his
country to keep her religion intact through those moments
of her supreme agony; to preserve in all its purity the
Polish soul, which would be tempted by two opposing but
equally brutal forces : the Panslavism of the Czars, and
126 POLISH POETRY IM
the radicalism of Euro])e ! There is sometliing strangely-
pathetic even in the first lines of his famous Psalm of
"Good Will," in which the son of a nation still bleeding
after a massacre and counted among the dead, robbed of
all that is prized ujion this earth, still cries to his Creator :
"Thoji hasi given us everything, O Lord: all that Thou
couldst grant us of the eternal treasures of Thy grace !
Even after we had descended into the grave, Thou hast
maintained us living in all the great struggles of the
world. We no longer existed, and yet we were always
present in every glorious action, upon every field of battle,
with our Eagle of silver and our blade of steel; Thou
hast taken from us the earth, but hast lowered to us the
heavens; Thine infinite heart hath everywhere shielded
us; corpses in appearance, we were in reality spirits ! "
For Poland, to which the Lord has already granted all,
the Poet only asks the final gift : a will which knows no
recourse save to holy acts when extreme temptations come.
. . . " To-day, O Lord, when Thy judgment begins upon
the two thousand years through which Christianity has
already existed, grant us, O Lord, to resuscitate ourselves
only through the power given by Thee to holy acts! "
This prayer returns, through varied intervals, in this sub-
lime Psalm, through which the rhythm flows majestically
slow as some vast organ's chords ; it falls upon the ear
at most unexpected moments, and is yet always admirably
prepared, brought back rather by the musical enchainment
of the thought than by its logical development; recalling
the contexture of a fugue of Bach, and ])roducing the
same magical effect. Tiie hymn is closed by a marvelous
picture of Catholic sentiment. The veneration in which
the Mother of Christ has always been held by Poland is well
known to the world. Our Poet represents the heavenly
Mother pleading to the Son for His faithful servants;
offering before Him a chalice in either hand, one contain-
ing the blood of the Saviour of men, the other that of the
martyred nation.
Lord, look upon Thy Mother! Look, O Lord!
Surrounded by Thy ninsomod souls she mounts
To 'I'licc, tluDugh the immensities of space;
And as she passes, all tiie stars bow down,
The whirlinj; forces of the universe
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 127
Are charmed into a sudden tenderness.
Borne upward by the pale and misty Shades
Of our own martyrs, now she cleaves the Blue,
Crosses the Milky-Ways, and leaves the suns behind;
Higher and higher still she ever mounts,
And whiter, more resplendent still she grows.
Look on her, Lord ! See her as low she kneels
Before Thy throne, midst all Thy Seraphim.
Upon her forehead burns the Polish crown,
Herazure mantle sweeps the depths of space.
Tissued of rays of light. The spheres are still,
And wait Thy word ! With gentle voice she prays ;
Behind her weep the spirits of our sires;
In either hand she holds a chalice up. . . .
O Lord, 'tis Thine own blood she here presents
In the cup which she holds high in her right hand !
And lower — in the left, — O. lower far, —
Thou knowest. Lord, — the blood of those who loved thee, —
Of Thine own faithful subjects, crucified
Upon a thousand crosses I The blood which flows
Unceasingly beneath a triple sword.
Upon three realms which yet are but one country / . . .
In the name of the Holy Cup which overflows
With Thine own love, she prays I'hy mercy for
The chalice which is lower— lower far, —
She prays for us, — Father, and Spirit, Son !
She prays for us, and we all pray with her.
That Tliou wouldst grant the grace of every grace !
It is not Hope that we implore from Thee :
It falls upon us like a rain of flowers. —
Nor is it Death on our oppressors' heads :
Their doom is written on to-morrow's clouds. —
Nor is it power to rise from our red graves :
The stone unrolled, we have already risen. —
Nor is it arms to meet our enemies :
The tempests bear them to us on the winds. —
Nor is it aid ; the field of action opes
Before us now, and we must aid ourselves. —
But as to-day Thy judgment has commenced
On the two thousand years already lived
By Christianity, O grant us. Lord,
A holy will!
O Father, Son, and Spirit, a good will !
The hymn of the "Good Will" was the last of the
Psalms of the Poet ; we might even say it was the last of
his songs. He raised his voice only once more in his
"Resurrecturis," in which he seemed to endeavor to gather
together, as in a final chortl, all his ideas upon sacrifice,
to recomnieml them to the nation, — after wliich he was
128 POLISH POETRY IN
silent. The Nation was silent with him ; she ruminated
long upon the thoughts evolved in "Iridion," "The
Dawn," and the "Psalms" ; she tlioroughly impregnated
herself with them; she entered upon a career of painful
and obscure labors for which she may perhaps be some
day compensated, but Avhich for the time only thickened
around her the shroud of forgetfulness in which she was
wrapped. The greatest events passed without in the least
changing her lot ; even the Crimean war did not call her
upon the scene of action, and in the midst of so many Peo-
ples making their names resound, or recovering them, she
rested long mute and ignored. She became, like her Poet,
^'anonymous ! '''' During this time, the author of the
" Psalms" died in a foreign land, and there was nothing,
even to this untimely end, Avhich did not bear the seal of
the tragic destiny which, with its weight of lead, })ressed
to the very earth the whole of this mournful and pained
existence. An old man, an old and brave soldier, had
just expired in the midst of the indifference of his com-
patriots, — an indifference which was indeed only gener-
osity ; and if the nation deigned to give a single thought
to the event, it was of the respite which this death might
give to the tortured life of a son who had been ever faith-
ful to his country. But the fatal tie uniting these two
lives was not to be broken even by death ; a violent ill-
ness seized the Poet, and he perished but three months
after he had lost his father. He died in Paris, the 24th
of February, 1859, — and Silence only came to seat herself
upon his grave ! To borrow the picturesque expression
of a celebrated Polish writer : " A great genius went to
heaven, and in his flight he did not brush the earth,
even with his shadow ! "
A like silence reigned over another tomb, wider and
deeper far, which was called Poland ; but on a day more
than a year ago the three monarchs of the North agreed
upon the "interview of Warsaw," which, rigluly or
wrongly, the liberal opinion of ICurope regarded as the
point of departure of a new holy alliance ; it was said this
interview was especially directed against Italy, and the gen-
eral tendencies of the West. At this news Poland trembled.
The Nation, so long buried in its own grief, in its internal
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
129
toil, shook off its shroud, and sprang from its inaction.
And is it known what was the signal of this sudden Polish
life? It was a funeral mass celebrated upon the same day
in all the churches of the country for the repose of the
souls of three poets : Mickiewicz ; the author of the
"Psalms"; and Slowa<;ki.
A pious thought of love and concord thus strove to re-
unite before God, and in the general mourning of their
fellow-men, the two great adversaries who had been for a
long time friends, placing above them both the great
master, — "the immortal IVa'ide/ote. "
Soon after came the day in which the people of Warsaw
rose ; rose without arms, bearing only the cross and Polish
flag in their hands: "They gave no death, but they
received it;" and when the Ruler, frightened at an at-
titude so new, demanded what they wanted, they replied :
" Our Country. "
Then must the great spirit of the singer of "Resurrec-
turis" have leaped for joy. The Ideal he had dreamed
was now Ideality ; aird the Poetry which had remained so
long anonymous was now signed by the name of an entire
People.
THE "FRAGMENT,"
OR
UNFINISHED POEM.
INTRODUCTION.
Mountains in the neighborhood of Venice. Sunrise. Ali-
GHiERi and the Young Man, both in hunting costume,
are seated upon a rock.
The Young Man. Look, friend, in what glowing purple
the god of day ascends ! Ah ! if man were thus born,
and could thus extend his dominion over earth ! Look !
How that last dim star is dying out ! It is said to be the
fate of the heart thus to die, consumed in the flames of
genius ! Rise ! Rise, O Sun !
Shine down into these
depths still tenanted by darkness ; throw thy glittering
bridges of rainbows from bank to bank across the white
torrents ! How fresh is the air ! I feel so strong, I see
so far, my sight is so clear and piercing, I know I shall
not miss a single shot to-day. The poor chamois brows-
ing there upon that dizzy cliff will not live till noon !
Dost thou not hear? The shrill horns of our hunters re-
echo through the pines of the mountain. Come ! let us go !
Alighieri. I will remain here.
Young Man. Alighieri, what is the matter with thee
to-day ? Thou hast scarcely spoken to me since sunset.
When we began to climb these rocks at midnight, in
silence didst thou skirt the precipices, using thy hand
only to point out to me their dangers ; and now when the
chase is about to begin, when the trees shiver with the
bayings of our dogs, when the earth, the rocks, and my
131
132
THE ^'FRAGMENT:'
spirit tremble with eagerness, thou hesitatest and hast no
desire to accompany us!
Alighicri. Knowest thou not this is the hour in which
I am accustomed to pray to God ?
Young Man. Then I will wait for thee.
Alighieri. Knowest thou not that I am wont to pray
to the Lord only in solitude?
Young Man. Then tell me at what time I shall return
for thee.
Alighieri. Thou wilt find me this evening in the same
place.
Young Man. I wish to Heaven thou wouldst accom-
pany me ! Come ! 1 cannot fire aright without thee.
We will mount that naked peak where crystals form and
chamois bound. The hunters say the whole world can
be seen from that point : come !
Alighieri. The whole world may be seen from here
also !
Young Man. How ?
Alighieri. By closing our eyes, and humbling our
spirits before the Lord !
Young Man. Hark ! again they wind the horn. Adieu !
Now on, on ! over these abysses, and up those heights, —
up — up, among the clouds ! I am sorry from my heart,
Alighieri, that thou wilt not come with me.
Alighieri. Bend not thus over the precipice, — hold by
the branches ! I can still see, — I see thee, — turn not to-
wards me, — take care there on the edge of the waterfall !
He hears me no longer. He flies like a bird, scarcely
touching earth. In the dawn of existence, the child, agile,
light and careless, sports like the spirits whom Death will
approach no more. But they know the mysteries of being,
and he has scarcely wakened to the consciousness of life !
As the ether which fills the infinite may condense into
dark masses, form brilliant suns, or float as light vapor on
through s])ace, — so may he become all or nothing ; the
Elect of Heaven, or the prey of Hell !
{He raises his hands in prayer. )
Merciful Father ! Thy ways on earth have in our days
grown obscure ! Thy face is veiled in clouds ! ! Men
INTRODUCTION. 133
seek thee anew, and cannot find Thee ! But even now
Thou risest upon the horizon ; Thou increasest ! Why-
do they gaze forever into the heights of Heaven ? Ah,
if they would but look toward their own horizons !
Heavenly Father ! this moment of transition is for
their eyes a fearful twilight ; for their thoughts a dread-
ful temptation ; and for their hearts a terrible grief! If
Thou shortenest it not, many of them must perish !
{He kneels. ')
I pray to Thee, Lord, for him whose soul Thou hast
committed to my charge. Graciously listen to the testi-
mony I bear Thee of him ! Unconsciously, but without
ceasing, his soul strives to break a way to Thy Heaven !
The germ of all beauty, a spark from Thee, burns in
its depths, but the body, like a thick veil, wraps it on all
sides. The spirit over which I watch still seeks Thee
through this fog, O Lord ! . . .
He knows not yet, O God, that thou art also present
within himself; Thou whom he sees above him, whom
he acknowledges below him ; Thou who art everywhere !
Pardon him then, Lord, if he languishes for Thee !
Behold, Lord, I am sad even unto death, for the mo-
ments of his innocence are passing away, — soon must his
heart be torn by the struggle of Good and Evil, — the sole
but bitter source of virtue ! Remember me. Lord ! Show
Thy mercy upon me, by showing Thy pity upon him !
{He bows his forehead to the earth. )
Merciful Father ! I do not pray Thee to remove from
his path any of the cares of life ! I know that, like all
the exiles upon earth who through this world return to
Thee, he, too, must pass through the probation of evil
when the hour of temptation sounds ! Thy will be done !
Strike him with the scourge of grief, that he may be
humbled among men ; let them load him with chains, let
his body suffer martyrdom, if Thou wilt only spare him
the shame of baseness and save him from the eternal
night of the soul ! Let me warn him in these last, fleet-
ing moments !
Let this night obey me ! When in Thy name I shall
command it, let the winds of the valleys and the mists of
12*
134
THE "FRAGMENT:
the torrents gather round me, that I may form them into
ephemeral figures, and breathe my thoughts into a Dream
which will only live until to-morrow's dawn !
But in it will be Thy Eternal Truth and the transitory
truth of this world !
And he whom I love will one day remember Thy
Eternal Truth, — and thou wilt save him, Lord !
{Long silence. ^
Young Man {re-entering). What is this? Still in the
same place, under the same pine, and still at prayer ?
Give me thy hand ! Rise, Alighieri !
Alighieri. Thou, Henry ! So soon returned ?
Young Man. Thou dreamest ! Did I not leave thee
at sunrise? and now that sun sinks in the west, behind
the crest of yonder rocks. " »S<? j<? <? «," indeed ! Since
I left thee, I have thrice crossed the glacier of Hewal-
dyne, been on the very summit of the mountain, and to
the very foot of this ravine. Thrice have I wound the
horn ; thou must have heard it !
Alighieri. True ; it is already sunset !
Young Man. Has the day, then, passed away like a
moment for thee?
Alighieri. Happy he whose life thus flows ; he lives
in eternity ! What has happened to thee, Henry? What
means this blood upon thy breast and on the handle of
thy knife?
Young Man. Alighieri, a little more, and I must have
perished ! This is not the blood of a bounding roe or
innocent chamois. I will tell thee all as we wend our
way below, for I sent the hunters on in advance, and we
must hasten if we would overtake them before night-fall.
Alighieri. I will listen as I follow thee.
Young Man. Hearken, then, and I will tell thee all.
I fire upon a chamois; it falls and rolls to the bottom of
a precipice. I call my Tyrolese, show them the spot, but
they see nothing. Consequently, I must descend myself
to find my prey. Three of them follow me ; we make a
long, winding descent, ever lower and lower, until we
reach a dense wood, a thick forest of pines. But as we
advance we observe something moving in the thicket be-
JNTR OD UCTION.
135
fore us, within range of our bullets, — it may be a deer, a
stag. I look eagerly towards it, but in my haste have
forgotten to reload my gun. I seize a cartridge, but in
this very moment a bear starts from the thicket, stops,
and scents the air. Ah ! he has discovered us ! My men
instantly fire upon him ; their balls only graze his hide ;
rising and roaring, he rushes upon us ! They, crying
loudly upon me to follow, take to flight. Still shouting
as long as breath lasts them, they climb upon the
branches of a tall pine. I know not why I remain alone ;
what possible glory can a man achieve in a wild struggle
with a beast ? I know not why I was ashamed to run.
But my fathers never fled, whether before the wild beast
or upon the field of battle !
I throw away my gun, rapidly tear my knife from my
belt, — it is time, for the velvety king of the forests is
already upon my breast. As if he were human, he clasps
me in his arms ; he buries his claws in my quivering
flesh ! I strike him instantly in the breast ; it avails
not, and again I strike him ! He topples over at the
third blow, bears me with him to the earth, and lies
heavy and dead upon me. Throwing a glance of con-
tempt at my hunters, I leave the skin of my victim to
them in memory of their cowardice.
Alighieri. The Lord has saved thee ; hast thou ren-
dered thanks to him?
Voting Man. Not in words, but truly from my heart.
When I rose, shaking off the bear, and glad to find my-
self still living, I lifted my hands gratefully to Heaven.
Alighieri. There are moments in which the Lord ex-
acts no more.
Voting Man. It is strange that I feel no weariness ; I
am as fresh as I was at sunrise. Look, Alighieri, how
rapidly we descend. We cannot now be far from the
dwellings of man, for here is a young girl passing near
us. Ha ! good-evening, my Beauty ! Do you not hear
me? What do you fear? Do stay, and give me the lily
you bear in your hand !
T/ie Voting Girl {in passing). I will not give it to
you, but to the other !
Voting Man. And wherefore ?
136 THE '' fragment:'
The Young Girl. Because he looks like the white
angel which stands on our great altar to the right of the
Mother of God; but you do not belong to this country,
have never been in our church, and so have never seen
our angel ! {To Aiighieri. ) Good-evening ! I pray you,
sir, accept these flowers !
Alighieri. Tiianks, ray child. May you be happy !
Young Man. I suppose, then, I must be very ugly, fair
maiden ?
The Young Girl. You too are beautiful, but not like
our angel !
{She passes on. ^
Young Man. Give me the half of those flowers ; I will
keep them in memory of the fact that this simple young
girl felt the same impression which I experienced the first
time I saw thee. What she says is true, — very true, — and
it is not only thy face which is so much finer than mine,
but thy high soul, Alighieri. Dost thou remember the
hour in which we first met ? It is as present to me as if
it had been but yesterday.
Alighieri. To me too, Henry, for in that hour I be-
came thy friend.
Young Man. Yes, I still see the old building in whose
halls a thousand of my companions sat, and the professors
wlio instructed us from their high desks. I see the wind-
ing staircase and its embrasure, with its steps of stone, on
which thou first appearedst to me: — am I not right? I
was a proud boy, though still a mere child and very feeble.
I had just left my father's house, and was passing through
the throng of students, with pride upon my brow, for I
felt they hated me, though I knew not why. They crowded
round me, they pressed against me, they nearly stifled
me, they shouted " the little aristocrat," — as if I ought to
blush because I had more than one ancestor who had given
his life for his country and the church in which he was to
repose ! O God ! then first was hell born in my infant
breast ! i clung to the balustrade of iron while they i)ulled
me down by my hands, my feet, and the folds of my
mantle. Perhaps I should have rolled under their feet
hadst thou not then appeared : thou descendedst from
above, as pale, as slight, as thou art to day, but thine eyes
INTRODUCTION.
137
flashed fire ! No one knew thee, but they must have seen
thee from time to time and remembered the expression of
thy brow. Thou gavest a cry ; and they fell from me like
dead leaves ! Give me thy hand, Alighieri ! Ah !
different in numbers ; it is not a class, but an entire popu-
lation. It was the only element which in the past had
been able to develop fully in itself the consciousness of its
own nationality; and at present it is the class of the pro-
prietors, the land-owners (of which the Polish nobility
consists), which bears in its breast the historic traditions
as well as the vivid prevision of the Future of Poland. It
constitutes the moral antl intellectual force of the country;
it issimjily its " tiers-elat," — for Poland has had no other:
and instead of being opposed to modern progress and
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
117
principles, it leans too fnuch for safety to modern ideas !
To propose the destruction of such a nobility was — as the
Anonymous Poet justly asserted — " to commit self-mur-
der, in order, after our suicide, to act and conquer. " It
was, nevertheless, recommended by the democratic propa-
ganda, which called upon the people to rise as one man
to deliver the country, to make way with every suspected
proprietor at the commencement of the insurrection, to
divide the lands of the nobles, who had no right to na-
tional life at all except in so far as tliey made part of the
people. And what was most tragically fantastic in this
melancholy attempt was, that its apostles, as well as its
disciples, were themselves of the nobility, for the demo-
cratic propaganda had no influence whatever among the
peasants, neither by its publications nor its emissaries; it
addressed itself to the proprietors, to the gentlemen of the
country ; it was by them it was so eagerly received, and
through them organized into a vast conspiracy, ready to
break out at a given signal. That the Polish nobility
should have so magnanimously and almost so universally
accepted the word of command from Paris, which sounded
for themselves the knell of spoliation and death, while it
certainly argues a great want of political intelligence, also
incontestabiy proves into what deep and hopeless despair
the country had been driven by foreign domination : it
must prove also above all else how cruel and unjust were
the declamations then made — as indeed they still are —
against the selfish and aristocratic spirit of this poor Polish
nobility, generous enough to accept even communism,
sufficiently devoted to what it believed to be the interest
of the country to subscribe to its ozan suicide ; which sfjirit
the Powers of the North at the time of the dismember-
ment, as also Nicholas in 1831, denounced as confirmed
Jacobinism.
It is difficult to imagine the rapidity and extent of the
democratic movement which then seized upon Poland,
the result of which, for any clear-sighted mind, could
only be a powerless insurrection, aggravated by social
rupture and distraction. How heart-rending the situa-
tion of the Anonymous Poet in such events ! It can-
not be denied that some of his poems, magnanimous and
II
Ii8 POLISH POETRY IN
sublime as they are, — especially those which appeared
after " Iridion," — have erred through an excess of spir-
itual optimism ; that his poetry forgot too much the con-
ditions of this world ; that it evangelized and ange/ized
men with too little regard to their situation and duty as
citizens ; and that the influence of these works is still,
in more than one respect, enervating for young souls.
Alas ! the Poet was soon to be cruelly recalled from these
ethereal and cloudy spheres by the most bitter reality;
a period of two years only intervened between the en-
trancing visions of " The Dawn" and the heart-rending
lamentations of ''The Psalms of the Future" (1845).
This " Christ of Nations," proclaimed so near its Resur-
rection, with its mission of new life to enslaved Nations,
must now be preserved from suicide ! Our Poet did not
shrink from this painful duty, and, if we consider his
personal position and the general state of the public
mind, it was in him a great act of civic courage. He
brought to the fulfillment of this task all the fire, elo-
quence, logic, and passion of his heart. The first two
Hymns are still kept in the realms of the Future ; he
again represents to the Nation the ideal which God cre-
ated her to realize; but in the third Psalm he enters
upon the fiery questions of the moment ; exposes the
elements of the propaganda, resolution by resolution ;
boldly pronounces the words, " Massacre of the nobles,"
which might be found in the logic of the new doctrines,
or in the progress of events. To the " conventioners"
of the Convention, who were always calling for vigorous
acts, he declared that murders were no actions ; that de-
struction was not regeneration; that there was but one
true law of public safety for the nation: "the Polish
nobles with the Polish people. '^ After having recalled the
eternal principles of justice and humanity, he undertakes
the defense of the Polish nobility, then so loudly decried
by a blinded radicalism. Was it not the nobility whose
breast forever bloomed into scars and gashes? Was it
not always ready to offer up itself in holocaust upon the
altar of the country? Had it not even consented to sui-
cide? In the great Diet of 1791, who ojiened to the
people the golden doors of the Future ? Was it not this
THE NINE TEE. y Til CENTURY.
119
maligned race of nobles — a race which had never con-
sented to a truce with the oppressor — which had offered
itself as autumn grain to be harvested on every battle-
field, and which had actually peopled Siberia ?
"Everywhere, everywhere upon this globe, I see the
footprints of my brothers, and your words will never be
able to efface them. It is they whom the world has per-
secuted ', it is they whom the hangmen have tortured ; it
is they who forever wander in the polar snows, and who
crowd the dungeons of the citadels T
"Upon the arid peaks of the Alps, upon the billowy
azure of the Mediterranean, upon the Italian Apennines,
upon the summits of the Sierras of Spain, upon the wide
plains of Germany, upon the snows and ices of the Mos-
covites, upon the fields of friendly France, upon every
land, on every sea, they have scattered the seed of our
future country ; a seed divine, the blood of martyrs —
and you are the sons of their agonies ! "
The Anonymous Poet regards persecution as a small
ill ; the obscuration of truth is the real and terrible evil ;
the changes forced upon the true life of the national soul
by constant oppression, the reign of morbid and funereal
ideas, is the great misfortune. He says : "Alas ! slavery
distills a poison which decomposes the soul ! Siberia is
nothing; the knout is nothing; nothing the racks and
tortures which rend the body ; but alas for the spirit of
the nation when it is poisoned ! This is the most bitter
of all woes! " The poet conjures his country to repel
all evil counsels, all inspirations of despair, "Let the
demagogues howl on, the sophists whisper that a high
and mysterious aim may justify infamous means ; that the
happiness of ail h worth the death of t\\efe-aj; that love
may spring from a work of hate. . . . No ! no ! IVe
can build nothing of mire ; and the highest Wisdom is
Virtue J"
Thus, invoking the most glorious memories of the Past
for the salvation of the Present, passing from flashes of
anger to accents of soul-subduing pity, and placing all
his luxuriant imagination in the service of common sense,
did the inspired patriot continue to write. But it was a
voice in the desert ; it was lost without echo in the pros-
120 rOLISH POETRY hV
tration of the clear-sighted, and the disdainful silence of
the party of action. As too often happens in moments
of public excitement, our author was not jia/ged, he was
classed ; he was placed among the enemies of progress, —
and then all was over ! One man, however, broke the
silence to rejily to the singer of the " Psalms," to defend
the honor of the denounced propaganda, to avenge "the
outraged people," and this man was also a Bard, and for-
merly a friend of the Anonymous Poet. Of an ardent
and wayward temperament, consumed by a sombre mysti-
cism as well as by a haughty pride, exceedingly jealous,
uniting to a splendid imagination a power of language
never equaled, even by Mickiewicz, Julius Slowa^ki sud-
denly entered the lists, and gave to the propaganda what
had hitherto been wanting to it — the support of his
marvelous genius. Raillery, anger, disguised allusions,
stormy passions, true sufferings, and fictitious com-
plaints, all the flashing and sometimes poisoned weapons
of his brilliant armory, were made use of in his "Reply
to the Author of the Psalms. "
Let us cast a brief glance on this " Reply," as it is an
important element in this characteristic and almost na-
tional debate. Slowa(;ki therein calls back the author of
the "Psalms" to his visions in his " Dawn," to the final
cry in which he invokes "his actions," at the same time
cruelly satirizing the "seraphic doctrines of the noble
dreamer. ^' The double-bladed sword glitters from the
very commencement. "To believe thee, my ^<^(;v///c7//<7//,
it would be a virtue in us to endure slavery patiently !
Thou changest our sad existence in this valley of tears
into a life of pure and shadowy spirits in the silver
moon ; with the voice of an infant thou criest : 'Action !
action ! action ! ' And the nation prepares for it, and
thou instantly beginnest to tremble when the face of the
people appears, and when the voice of God resounds
from the burning bush ! " Slowa^ki continues : " Once,
the Elect of noble Poetry were the first to proclaim new
truths, and to excite the masses to the combat of freedom.
But now behold ! a great Lord, a grand singer, shows
himself as a ' proj^het of the people,' but in the mode of
the Ifcau mondc, as a highly fashionable Prophet ! He
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 121
places Christ in his poetic car as Ovid did his Phaeton,
and with light, rose-colored steeds, he traverses the aerial
depths of a harmless ideal ! When the universe is per-
ishing in agony, when the tide of action rises high, be-
hold I he places himself as barrier across it, forbids the
century itself to move, and from his breast, shivering
with fear, we only hear the hoarse, shrill cry, in the name
of the red God, wliomsoever thou mayst be : ' Kill not
the nobility! ' The nobility? But where may it be
found? By what mark sliall we recognize it? " In a
celebrated stanza, Slowa^ki, who more than once recalls
his own noble origin, denies that the Polish nobility is
still in existence, making only one injurious exception
for Prince Czartoryski, in attributing to him dynastic
ambition, — an accusation frequently brought against a
tried patriot by the ungrateful companions of his exile.
"Yes, you were once numerous; formerly there were
hundreds of thousands of your nobles ; nobles by heart
and bearing ! But in our days I have known but one
noble; the whole country has never seen another. He
alone, by the misery of his heart, by his intentions if
not by his success ;. by a silent, proud, and grand sad-
ness ; by a hand always full of gifts, by an antique, quiet
glory, was a noble, and had the right so to call himself.
And now he, the sole and only noble, has abandoned
your ranks ; he has himself resigned his dignity; he has
gone down to rot atnong the kings / He is no longer, and
you are no more ! "
It has always been the tactics of revolutionists to pre-
sent their programmes as utterly harmless ; and Slowagki
did not fail to follow this course. He boldly asks our
poet : Where he had ever heard massacre spoken of ; who
had threatened with the dagger? Mere visions of a
troubled brain were all such idle thoughts, hallucinations
of a frightened fancy. A plaintive tone had perhaps
reached him through the air; a (^///■w/1'^* celebrating the
ancient combats of the Zaparogues ; and you ivere afraid,
son of the noble ! or perhajjs some brilliant morning a ray
of sunshine pierced into the room of the Psalmist, made
* . \ Dirge from the Ukraine.
II*
122 POLISH POETRY IN
its way through the scarlet curtains of his sumptuous bed ;
and the lord-poet, suddenly awaked, thought he saw red,
— and y OK were a/raid, son of the noble! This ironic
refrain returns frequently through the poem, and has its
climax in the words whose envenomed cruelty will be
readily understood : "You owe respect to your parents ;
now the Polish People is your father, you have no other !
Fear it r^ Nevertheless Slowa^ki, while defending the
democracy from nourishing any thought of vengeance,
takes care not to tranquillize us too completely; on the
contrary, he calls upon all the powers of his vast and
fiery imagination to depict the abyss of misery and pain
in which society groans ; the debasement of character,
the profound eclipse of justice, the horrors of tyranny,
the arrogance of the rich, the anguish of the poor. To
bring back the moral world which has swung from its
orbit, to tear humanity from this abyss of shame and in-
famy, "who knows what the Spirit may deem necessary,"
— "the Spirit, the eternal Revolutionist who tortures
bodies and delivers souls? " "The sun always rises in its
clouds of purple, and all Dawns are bloody ! "
The "Reply" of Slowa(;ki had scarcely had time to
be known by the public when appalling events arose,
bearing to the author of the " Psalms" a far more serious
response. The insurrection so long in preparation by the
propaganda at last broke out ; it proved as powerless
against the enemy as murderous for the nation. It was
principally, however, in Galicia that the disastrous out-
break showed in its full force, manifesting itself under
entirely new forms. The bureaucracy established there,
as violent as it was perfidious, had been very careful to
take no measures to prevent the explosion ; it had, on the
contrary, fed the subterranean fire, and had taken the time
to complete the tuition of the peasants, so happily com-
menced by the propaganda. Since the proprietors were
so decidedly, and even by their own confession, such
ferocious enemies of the people, would it not be best to
put an immediate end to them by a terrible justice,
especially when the government was so ready to help
them, even paying a good sum of florins for every head
of a noble, and facilitating the undertaking still more by
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
123
a suspoision of the laws of God for fifteen days ? That the
Court of Vienna should have thus repaid the services
formerly rendered her by the country of Sobieski, is one
of those flagrant ingratitudes which, even after the aston-
ishment has worn off, still leave an undying memory.
And who can wonder that the Poles should see in the ca-
lamities which have successively overwhelmed the House
of Hapsburg since the date of the wrongs of 1846 the
just punishment of one of the greatest crimes ever regis-
tered in history? The effect of the massacres of Tarnow
and Rzeszow was immense in Poland, and the discourage-
ment greater than had ever been known there before,
even after the greatest disasters. And let us say it with-
out prevarication, Poland to this very hour still bleeds
from the wounds of Tarnow and Rzeszow ; the massa-
cres of Galicia still weigh upon her as a memory and an
apprehension ; they have rendered her motionless during
the last fifteen years ; and even at this moment have not
ceased to paralyze her action.
The jacquerie of 1846 was followed by a prostration
of spirit which was manifested in the world of thought
by a mournful silence, which lasted long, and was only
broken for a moment by the characteristic phenomenon
of the " Letter from a Polish gentleman to Prince Met-
ternich," in which the Marquis Wielopolski — since be-
come famous — for the first time proposed without dis-
guise, and with the concentration of despair, the question
of voluntary self-destruction in the bosom of a vengeful
panslavism. It is difficult to imagine with what a stifling
weight the sad events of 1846 pressed upon the soul of
the Anonymous Poet. It was two years before he was
able to write again. He then commenced a new series
of Psalms, in which he tried to pour balm into the wounds
still bleeding, and to light hope anew in hearts crushed to
earth. Aresponse was still due to Slowacjki, and he made
it with moderation, yet with force, but also with great
sadness. The reproach of cowardice made by Slowa^ki
weighed heavily upon the descendant of the Knights of
Bar. "Thou hast said it was fear that spoke in my soul
when I foresaw that we were moving toward the darkness,
and not toward the light ; and that the people might, in
124 POLISH POETRY IN
this path, bring disgrace upon themselves. Thou hast
spoken the truth ; there is a certain kind of courage of
which I cannot be proud. It is true, I do tremble at
the death of my fellow-men ; I love not to push them into
the abyss. At the sight of shame, it is true, a divine
terror seizes my heart ; assassins will never be to me as
brothers; I love the sword, but shudder at the knife! "
Our Author then begins the debate, discusses all the
destructive theories of Slowacjki, especially that of the
"Spirit eternally revolutionist" and "torturing bodies
to deliver souls. " He calls for a regeneration by a con-
tinuous development through love. He says, ingeniously:
"It is also a great sin, O Poet, to speak only ever of
the ^■p'wii, forgetting that He proceeds from the Father and
the Son; to abstract all the past generations, and to re-
nounce the painful work of the ages ! "
The solution of continuity between the epochs which
preceded the revolution and those which succeeded it, the
rupture of all traditions, the absence of all roots in the
heart of history, which caused the tree of the new life so
soon to wither and die, though we ceased not to water it
with our tears and blood, — all this has been noticed and
commented upon more than once in our time ; especially
after the catastrophe of February led us to scrutinize more
closely the problem of modern existence, and to seek
more deeply into the internal causes of the moral discon-
tent and dissatisfaction with which we are struggling.
Such truths were not generally perceived until our Poet
brought them to the light in his "Psalms," and in all cases
he has known how to give them ingenious and touching
forms in a manner peculiar to himself. He saw, in ad-
dition, the gulf constantly widening between the upper
and intelligent classes and the lower ranks ; the first
forced to draw back in order to preserve themselves, the
second having no hope save in forever pressing forward
toward the unknown ; he foresaw the possible, nay, im-
minent conflict between the two great European factions:
but he found even in this very conflict a cause for liope,
— and he continued to hope for his country. He believed
Poland was destined to counterbalance, by the character
of her instincts and the influence of her actions, "the
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 125
atrocious cowardice of the retrograde party, as well as
the frightful passions of the radicals. " Thus after a long
detour, and even through the bloody gulf of Tarnow, did
the author of the " Psalms" return to the radiant visions
of the " Dawn," exclaiming after, as before, the massa-
cre: **0 my country! watch and hope: love without
bounds is life without end P' . . . We may judge these
hopes of the Poet as we will, but we are forced to bow
reverently before the faith and charity which, after such
trials, were able to inspire such words !
At the date of the appearance of these new Psalms, the
revolution of February broke out, and soon had its counter-
stroke as far as in the capital of Austria. The Anonymous
Poet followed the progress of events closely, without mis-
understanding their importance, but without making the
least allusion to them. Faithful to his system, he re-
garded the present epoch as the painful birth of the second
Christian era; as preparing, to use the words of M. de
Maistre, "a new eruption of Christianity;" he saw even
in the events of 1848 the annunciation of the judgment
of God upon the two thousand years of Christianity, and of
a palingenesis according to the Gospel ; but in the imme-
diate future he could see nothing but misfortunes. The
nations appeared to him no wiser than their governments.
"There is no privilege before thee, O God ! Peoples as
well as kings, as soon as they become unfaithful to Thee,
are equally doomed to fall, — since even Thy Angels by
myriads fell I"
In the first days of the revolution of 1848, he pre-
dicted the horrors of June in an eloquent prophecy. His
presentiments went still further, and he believed he could
announce the hour in which the West of Europe, sapped
in its foundations and shaken in its faith in liberty, would
at last come to believe in the "truth of him who alone
remained firm and unshaken upon the rock of St. Peters-
burg. " Then would be, affirmed the Poet, the last, yet the
most cruel, trial of crucified Poland ; and he conjured his
country to keep her religion intact through those moments
of her supreme agony; to preserve in all its purity the
Polish soul, which would be tempted by two opposing but
equally brutal forces : the Panslavism of the Czars, and
126 POLISH POETRY IM
the radicalism of Euro])e ! There is sometliing strangely-
pathetic even in the first lines of his famous Psalm of
"Good Will," in which the son of a nation still bleeding
after a massacre and counted among the dead, robbed of
all that is prized ujion this earth, still cries to his Creator :
"Thoji hasi given us everything, O Lord: all that Thou
couldst grant us of the eternal treasures of Thy grace !
Even after we had descended into the grave, Thou hast
maintained us living in all the great struggles of the
world. We no longer existed, and yet we were always
present in every glorious action, upon every field of battle,
with our Eagle of silver and our blade of steel; Thou
hast taken from us the earth, but hast lowered to us the
heavens; Thine infinite heart hath everywhere shielded
us; corpses in appearance, we were in reality spirits ! "
For Poland, to which the Lord has already granted all,
the Poet only asks the final gift : a will which knows no
recourse save to holy acts when extreme temptations come.
. . . " To-day, O Lord, when Thy judgment begins upon
the two thousand years through which Christianity has
already existed, grant us, O Lord, to resuscitate ourselves
only through the power given by Thee to holy acts! "
This prayer returns, through varied intervals, in this sub-
lime Psalm, through which the rhythm flows majestically
slow as some vast organ's chords ; it falls upon the ear
at most unexpected moments, and is yet always admirably
prepared, brought back rather by the musical enchainment
of the thought than by its logical development; recalling
the contexture of a fugue of Bach, and ])roducing the
same magical effect. Tiie hymn is closed by a marvelous
picture of Catholic sentiment. The veneration in which
the Mother of Christ has always been held by Poland is well
known to the world. Our Poet represents the heavenly
Mother pleading to the Son for His faithful servants;
offering before Him a chalice in either hand, one contain-
ing the blood of the Saviour of men, the other that of the
martyred nation.
Lord, look upon Thy Mother! Look, O Lord!
Surrounded by Thy ninsomod souls she mounts
To 'I'licc, tluDugh the immensities of space;
And as she passes, all tiie stars bow down,
The whirlinj; forces of the universe
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 127
Are charmed into a sudden tenderness.
Borne upward by the pale and misty Shades
Of our own martyrs, now she cleaves the Blue,
Crosses the Milky-Ways, and leaves the suns behind;
Higher and higher still she ever mounts,
And whiter, more resplendent still she grows.
Look on her, Lord ! See her as low she kneels
Before Thy throne, midst all Thy Seraphim.
Upon her forehead burns the Polish crown,
Herazure mantle sweeps the depths of space.
Tissued of rays of light. The spheres are still,
And wait Thy word ! With gentle voice she prays ;
Behind her weep the spirits of our sires;
In either hand she holds a chalice up. . . .
O Lord, 'tis Thine own blood she here presents
In the cup which she holds high in her right hand !
And lower — in the left, — O. lower far, —
Thou knowest. Lord, — the blood of those who loved thee, —
Of Thine own faithful subjects, crucified
Upon a thousand crosses I The blood which flows
Unceasingly beneath a triple sword.
Upon three realms which yet are but one country / . . .
In the name of the Holy Cup which overflows
With Thine own love, she prays I'hy mercy for
The chalice which is lower— lower far, —
She prays for us, — Father, and Spirit, Son !
She prays for us, and we all pray with her.
That Tliou wouldst grant the grace of every grace !
It is not Hope that we implore from Thee :
It falls upon us like a rain of flowers. —
Nor is it Death on our oppressors' heads :
Their doom is written on to-morrow's clouds. —
Nor is it power to rise from our red graves :
The stone unrolled, we have already risen. —
Nor is it arms to meet our enemies :
The tempests bear them to us on the winds. —
Nor is it aid ; the field of action opes
Before us now, and we must aid ourselves. —
But as to-day Thy judgment has commenced
On the two thousand years already lived
By Christianity, O grant us. Lord,
A holy will!
O Father, Son, and Spirit, a good will !
The hymn of the "Good Will" was the last of the
Psalms of the Poet ; we might even say it was the last of
his songs. He raised his voice only once more in his
"Resurrecturis," in which he seemed to endeavor to gather
together, as in a final chortl, all his ideas upon sacrifice,
to recomnieml them to the nation, — after wliich he was
128 POLISH POETRY IN
silent. The Nation was silent with him ; she ruminated
long upon the thoughts evolved in "Iridion," "The
Dawn," and the "Psalms" ; she tlioroughly impregnated
herself with them; she entered upon a career of painful
and obscure labors for which she may perhaps be some
day compensated, but Avhich for the time only thickened
around her the shroud of forgetfulness in which she was
wrapped. The greatest events passed without in the least
changing her lot ; even the Crimean war did not call her
upon the scene of action, and in the midst of so many Peo-
ples making their names resound, or recovering them, she
rested long mute and ignored. She became, like her Poet,
^'anonymous ! '''' During this time, the author of the
" Psalms" died in a foreign land, and there was nothing,
even to this untimely end, Avhich did not bear the seal of
the tragic destiny which, with its weight of lead, })ressed
to the very earth the whole of this mournful and pained
existence. An old man, an old and brave soldier, had
just expired in the midst of the indifference of his com-
patriots, — an indifference which was indeed only gener-
osity ; and if the nation deigned to give a single thought
to the event, it was of the respite which this death might
give to the tortured life of a son who had been ever faith-
ful to his country. But the fatal tie uniting these two
lives was not to be broken even by death ; a violent ill-
ness seized the Poet, and he perished but three months
after he had lost his father. He died in Paris, the 24th
of February, 1859, — and Silence only came to seat herself
upon his grave ! To borrow the picturesque expression
of a celebrated Polish writer : " A great genius went to
heaven, and in his flight he did not brush the earth,
even with his shadow ! "
A like silence reigned over another tomb, wider and
deeper far, which was called Poland ; but on a day more
than a year ago the three monarchs of the North agreed
upon the "interview of Warsaw," which, rigluly or
wrongly, the liberal opinion of ICurope regarded as the
point of departure of a new holy alliance ; it was said this
interview was especially directed against Italy, and the gen-
eral tendencies of the West. At this news Poland trembled.
The Nation, so long buried in its own grief, in its internal
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
129
toil, shook off its shroud, and sprang from its inaction.
And is it known what was the signal of this sudden Polish
life? It was a funeral mass celebrated upon the same day
in all the churches of the country for the repose of the
souls of three poets : Mickiewicz ; the author of the
"Psalms"; and Slowa<;ki.
A pious thought of love and concord thus strove to re-
unite before God, and in the general mourning of their
fellow-men, the two great adversaries who had been for a
long time friends, placing above them both the great
master, — "the immortal IVa'ide/ote. "
Soon after came the day in which the people of Warsaw
rose ; rose without arms, bearing only the cross and Polish
flag in their hands: "They gave no death, but they
received it;" and when the Ruler, frightened at an at-
titude so new, demanded what they wanted, they replied :
" Our Country. "
Then must the great spirit of the singer of "Resurrec-
turis" have leaped for joy. The Ideal he had dreamed
was now Ideality ; aird the Poetry which had remained so
long anonymous was now signed by the name of an entire
People.
THE "FRAGMENT,"
OR
UNFINISHED POEM.
INTRODUCTION.
Mountains in the neighborhood of Venice. Sunrise. Ali-
GHiERi and the Young Man, both in hunting costume,
are seated upon a rock.
The Young Man. Look, friend, in what glowing purple
the god of day ascends ! Ah ! if man were thus born,
and could thus extend his dominion over earth ! Look !
How that last dim star is dying out ! It is said to be the
fate of the heart thus to die, consumed in the flames of
genius ! Rise ! Rise, O Sun !
Shine down into these
depths still tenanted by darkness ; throw thy glittering
bridges of rainbows from bank to bank across the white
torrents ! How fresh is the air ! I feel so strong, I see
so far, my sight is so clear and piercing, I know I shall
not miss a single shot to-day. The poor chamois brows-
ing there upon that dizzy cliff will not live till noon !
Dost thou not hear? The shrill horns of our hunters re-
echo through the pines of the mountain. Come ! let us go !
Alighieri. I will remain here.
Young Man. Alighieri, what is the matter with thee
to-day ? Thou hast scarcely spoken to me since sunset.
When we began to climb these rocks at midnight, in
silence didst thou skirt the precipices, using thy hand
only to point out to me their dangers ; and now when the
chase is about to begin, when the trees shiver with the
bayings of our dogs, when the earth, the rocks, and my
131
132
THE ^'FRAGMENT:'
spirit tremble with eagerness, thou hesitatest and hast no
desire to accompany us!
Alighicri. Knowest thou not this is the hour in which
I am accustomed to pray to God ?
Young Man. Then I will wait for thee.
Alighieri. Knowest thou not that I am wont to pray
to the Lord only in solitude?
Young Man. Then tell me at what time I shall return
for thee.
Alighieri. Thou wilt find me this evening in the same
place.
Young Man. I wish to Heaven thou wouldst accom-
pany me ! Come ! 1 cannot fire aright without thee.
We will mount that naked peak where crystals form and
chamois bound. The hunters say the whole world can
be seen from that point : come !
Alighieri. The whole world may be seen from here
also !
Young Man. How ?
Alighieri. By closing our eyes, and humbling our
spirits before the Lord !
Young Man. Hark ! again they wind the horn. Adieu !
Now on, on ! over these abysses, and up those heights, —
up — up, among the clouds ! I am sorry from my heart,
Alighieri, that thou wilt not come with me.
Alighieri. Bend not thus over the precipice, — hold by
the branches ! I can still see, — I see thee, — turn not to-
wards me, — take care there on the edge of the waterfall !
He hears me no longer. He flies like a bird, scarcely
touching earth. In the dawn of existence, the child, agile,
light and careless, sports like the spirits whom Death will
approach no more. But they know the mysteries of being,
and he has scarcely wakened to the consciousness of life !
As the ether which fills the infinite may condense into
dark masses, form brilliant suns, or float as light vapor on
through s])ace, — so may he become all or nothing ; the
Elect of Heaven, or the prey of Hell !
{He raises his hands in prayer. )
Merciful Father ! Thy ways on earth have in our days
grown obscure ! Thy face is veiled in clouds ! ! Men
INTRODUCTION. 133
seek thee anew, and cannot find Thee ! But even now
Thou risest upon the horizon ; Thou increasest ! Why-
do they gaze forever into the heights of Heaven ? Ah,
if they would but look toward their own horizons !
Heavenly Father ! this moment of transition is for
their eyes a fearful twilight ; for their thoughts a dread-
ful temptation ; and for their hearts a terrible grief! If
Thou shortenest it not, many of them must perish !
{He kneels. ')
I pray to Thee, Lord, for him whose soul Thou hast
committed to my charge. Graciously listen to the testi-
mony I bear Thee of him ! Unconsciously, but without
ceasing, his soul strives to break a way to Thy Heaven !
The germ of all beauty, a spark from Thee, burns in
its depths, but the body, like a thick veil, wraps it on all
sides. The spirit over which I watch still seeks Thee
through this fog, O Lord ! . . .
He knows not yet, O God, that thou art also present
within himself; Thou whom he sees above him, whom
he acknowledges below him ; Thou who art everywhere !
Pardon him then, Lord, if he languishes for Thee !
Behold, Lord, I am sad even unto death, for the mo-
ments of his innocence are passing away, — soon must his
heart be torn by the struggle of Good and Evil, — the sole
but bitter source of virtue ! Remember me. Lord ! Show
Thy mercy upon me, by showing Thy pity upon him !
{He bows his forehead to the earth. )
Merciful Father ! I do not pray Thee to remove from
his path any of the cares of life ! I know that, like all
the exiles upon earth who through this world return to
Thee, he, too, must pass through the probation of evil
when the hour of temptation sounds ! Thy will be done !
Strike him with the scourge of grief, that he may be
humbled among men ; let them load him with chains, let
his body suffer martyrdom, if Thou wilt only spare him
the shame of baseness and save him from the eternal
night of the soul ! Let me warn him in these last, fleet-
ing moments !
Let this night obey me ! When in Thy name I shall
command it, let the winds of the valleys and the mists of
12*
134
THE "FRAGMENT:
the torrents gather round me, that I may form them into
ephemeral figures, and breathe my thoughts into a Dream
which will only live until to-morrow's dawn !
But in it will be Thy Eternal Truth and the transitory
truth of this world !
And he whom I love will one day remember Thy
Eternal Truth, — and thou wilt save him, Lord !
{Long silence. ^
Young Man {re-entering). What is this? Still in the
same place, under the same pine, and still at prayer ?
Give me thy hand ! Rise, Alighieri !
Alighieri. Thou, Henry ! So soon returned ?
Young Man. Thou dreamest ! Did I not leave thee
at sunrise? and now that sun sinks in the west, behind
the crest of yonder rocks. " »S<? j<? <? «," indeed ! Since
I left thee, I have thrice crossed the glacier of Hewal-
dyne, been on the very summit of the mountain, and to
the very foot of this ravine. Thrice have I wound the
horn ; thou must have heard it !
Alighieri. True ; it is already sunset !
Young Man. Has the day, then, passed away like a
moment for thee?
Alighieri. Happy he whose life thus flows ; he lives
in eternity ! What has happened to thee, Henry? What
means this blood upon thy breast and on the handle of
thy knife?
Young Man. Alighieri, a little more, and I must have
perished ! This is not the blood of a bounding roe or
innocent chamois. I will tell thee all as we wend our
way below, for I sent the hunters on in advance, and we
must hasten if we would overtake them before night-fall.
Alighieri. I will listen as I follow thee.
Young Man. Hearken, then, and I will tell thee all.
I fire upon a chamois; it falls and rolls to the bottom of
a precipice. I call my Tyrolese, show them the spot, but
they see nothing. Consequently, I must descend myself
to find my prey. Three of them follow me ; we make a
long, winding descent, ever lower and lower, until we
reach a dense wood, a thick forest of pines. But as we
advance we observe something moving in the thicket be-
JNTR OD UCTION.
135
fore us, within range of our bullets, — it may be a deer, a
stag. I look eagerly towards it, but in my haste have
forgotten to reload my gun. I seize a cartridge, but in
this very moment a bear starts from the thicket, stops,
and scents the air. Ah ! he has discovered us ! My men
instantly fire upon him ; their balls only graze his hide ;
rising and roaring, he rushes upon us ! They, crying
loudly upon me to follow, take to flight. Still shouting
as long as breath lasts them, they climb upon the
branches of a tall pine. I know not why I remain alone ;
what possible glory can a man achieve in a wild struggle
with a beast ? I know not why I was ashamed to run.
But my fathers never fled, whether before the wild beast
or upon the field of battle !
I throw away my gun, rapidly tear my knife from my
belt, — it is time, for the velvety king of the forests is
already upon my breast. As if he were human, he clasps
me in his arms ; he buries his claws in my quivering
flesh ! I strike him instantly in the breast ; it avails
not, and again I strike him ! He topples over at the
third blow, bears me with him to the earth, and lies
heavy and dead upon me. Throwing a glance of con-
tempt at my hunters, I leave the skin of my victim to
them in memory of their cowardice.
Alighieri. The Lord has saved thee ; hast thou ren-
dered thanks to him?
Voting Man. Not in words, but truly from my heart.
When I rose, shaking off the bear, and glad to find my-
self still living, I lifted my hands gratefully to Heaven.
Alighieri. There are moments in which the Lord ex-
acts no more.
Voting Man. It is strange that I feel no weariness ; I
am as fresh as I was at sunrise. Look, Alighieri, how
rapidly we descend. We cannot now be far from the
dwellings of man, for here is a young girl passing near
us. Ha ! good-evening, my Beauty ! Do you not hear
me? What do you fear? Do stay, and give me the lily
you bear in your hand !
T/ie Voting Girl {in passing). I will not give it to
you, but to the other !
Voting Man. And wherefore ?
136 THE '' fragment:'
The Young Girl. Because he looks like the white
angel which stands on our great altar to the right of the
Mother of God; but you do not belong to this country,
have never been in our church, and so have never seen
our angel ! {To Aiighieri. ) Good-evening ! I pray you,
sir, accept these flowers !
Alighieri. Tiianks, ray child. May you be happy !
Young Man. I suppose, then, I must be very ugly, fair
maiden ?
The Young Girl. You too are beautiful, but not like
our angel !
{She passes on. ^
Young Man. Give me the half of those flowers ; I will
keep them in memory of the fact that this simple young
girl felt the same impression which I experienced the first
time I saw thee. What she says is true, — very true, — and
it is not only thy face which is so much finer than mine,
but thy high soul, Alighieri. Dost thou remember the
hour in which we first met ? It is as present to me as if
it had been but yesterday.
Alighieri. To me too, Henry, for in that hour I be-
came thy friend.
Young Man. Yes, I still see the old building in whose
halls a thousand of my companions sat, and the professors
wlio instructed us from their high desks. I see the wind-
ing staircase and its embrasure, with its steps of stone, on
which thou first appearedst to me: — am I not right? I
was a proud boy, though still a mere child and very feeble.
I had just left my father's house, and was passing through
the throng of students, with pride upon my brow, for I
felt they hated me, though I knew not why. They crowded
round me, they pressed against me, they nearly stifled
me, they shouted " the little aristocrat," — as if I ought to
blush because I had more than one ancestor who had given
his life for his country and the church in which he was to
repose ! O God ! then first was hell born in my infant
breast ! i clung to the balustrade of iron while they i)ulled
me down by my hands, my feet, and the folds of my
mantle. Perhaps I should have rolled under their feet
hadst thou not then appeared : thou descendedst from
above, as pale, as slight, as thou art to day, but thine eyes
INTRODUCTION.
137
flashed fire ! No one knew thee, but they must have seen
thee from time to time and remembered the expression of
thy brow. Thou gavest a cry ; and they fell from me like
dead leaves ! Give me thy hand, Alighieri ! Ah !
