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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=427902" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Pan Beniowski - Final Part Of Canto Five</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Surging like a vast current of salmon or sheatfish, <br>Coiling up and down like an iron serpent <br>That rears now its torso, now its head, <br>The armed horsemen breast the prairie grass. -- <br>But hold! my song's device breaks down: <br>My Muse begs a rest, having drained her cup <br>Empty of sweet nectar; and so, farewell <br>To you, on that steppeland rise, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>My pair of golden, sun-drenched statues! <br>My iron ranks wallowing in the grass and herbage! <br>One needs here the yearning of a Malczewski-- <br>The kind found in men who are half angels. <br>One ought to sing here; meanwhile I weave fables. <br>Whenever I stir up the ashes of my homeland <br>And then raise my hand once more to the harp, <br>Specters from the grave rise before me--specters </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So lovely! So transparent! Fresh! Alive! Young! <br>That I am incapable of shedding real tears over them: <br>And yet I lead them in a dance about the valleys. <br>They take from my heart whatever they like: <br>A sonnet, a tragedy, a legend or sublime ode. <br>It is all that I have, all that I cherish and believe in. <br>Believe in. . . You ask me, my dear reader, <br>What I believe in? If I told, it would raise a furor. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>In the first place, this rhyme which scoffs and reviles <br>Has a political credo: these are Dantesque regions <br>You have entered. I believe with a pagan's heart <br>In Shakespeare's rhymes, in Dante and in Homer. <br>I believe in the commonwealth of an only son -- <br>In our case it was that surly fellow--Mochnacki! <br>Though he never stopped spinning his mighty dreams, <br>He allowed the Dictator to stretch him upon a cross. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I believe that he came into being in human form <br>And went to the Great Judgment that lights up<br>Our land; on the way, he dropped in on the Aristocracy <br>And bided in that flameless Hell for three days;<br>Then in a little book he passed judgment on his brothers: <br>Those who are upright and those who feel no shame;<br>In him I believe, and in his two unfinished books: <br>I believe in all the saints of our émigré circles, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And in their spiritual communion with our nation; <br>In the forgiveness of sins committed by our leaders<br>And the resurrection of our elected Sejm under Herod <br>Which being a very amusing body will constitute<br>The best proof of the resurrection of the body-- <br>The supreme instance of bodily resuscitation;<br>And finally, secure as to the future, I should add <br>That I believe in the life everlasting of that Sejm. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Amen... This amen chokes me, catches in my throat <br>Like the amen Macbeth uttered. -- Still, I believe<br>That like cranes chained to the wing the nations are making <br>Progress . . . that knights rise out of the bones. . .<br>That the tyrant cannot sleep when he bloodies the bed <br>Or robs the eagles of the youngest brood. . .<br>That fire and serpents and fear are his bedfellows. . . <br>All this I believe--yes--and in God as well! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>O God! Who has not felt You in the blue fields <br>Of Ukraine where the level plains arouse<br>Such sadness in the soul that ranges over them! -- <br>When, accompanied by a windy hymn,<br>The dust which Tartar hordes drenched in blood <br>Takes wing, shrouds the golden sun in ashes,<br>Blurs, reddens it, then suspends it in the sky <br>Like a black buckler with blood-shot eyes -- </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Who has not seen You, Almighty God, <br>On that great steppe, under a lifeless sun,<br>When the mounds on which all crosses stand <br>Bring blood to mind--or crooked flames;<br>When far off thunders a sea of bent-grass, <br>Burial mounds cry out with a terrible voice,<br>The locust unfurls its black rainbows, and the garland <br>Of graves melts away into the distance; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Who has not felt You in the terrors of nature: <br>In the great steppe or on Golgotha's hill<br>Or among columns surmounted not by a roof <br>But by a moon and an untold number of stars;<br>And who in the zest and ardor of youthful feeling <br>Has not felt that You exist, or, plucking daisies,<br>Has not found You in those daisies and forget-me-nots? <br>Yet still he seeks You in prayer and good deeds: </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>No doubt he will find You -- no doubt he will -- <br>I wish small-hearted men a humble faith<br>And a peaceful death. -- Jehovah's flashing face <br>Is of vast measure! When I count up the layers<br>Of exposed earth and see the bone piles <br>Lying there like the standards of lost armies<br>At the foot of mountain ridges -- skeletal remains <br>That also bear witness to God's being -- </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I see that He is not only the God of worms <br>And things that creep and crawl upon the dust:<br>He loves the booming flight of gigantic birds; <br>Puts no curb on stampeding horses. . .<br>He is the flaming plume of proud helms. . . Often <br>A great deed will sway Him where a tear-drop<br>Shed on the church doorstep will not: before Him <br>I fall down prostrate -- for He is God! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Where then is humility's forerunner?--the man <br>Who contended with me like a god? I seek him still;<br>I'll cleave his head with a lightning bolt, just as yesterday <br>I dealt him a blow on the breast. Have you seen him?<br>His lips are seasoned with wormwood. . . The people <br>Who believed in him make a show of joy<br>Yet droop their heads, for they know it was my nod <br>That brought the Prophet-Bard back to life. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Bit by bit, I tore my heart to shreds, <br>Forged the pieces into firebolts and hurled them<br>At his face; each piece boomed like a crag <br>As if high in the sky I had shattered a god into bits<br>And now the pieces were raining down. . . I smashed him -- <br>But what have I gained in the eyes of the people today?<br>The battle and victory took place high in the heavens -- <br>People see nothing in me, but courage. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Indeed. . . My nation! If you had but seen <br>How lonely and sorrow-laden I was<br>Knowing that if my firebolt failed to pierce him, <br>The Lithuanians would seize me in their collective claws;<br>But then, recalling my nest in the eastern marches, <br>I beckoned to Kremenets Mountain that it rise up<br>And put that rabble to flight -- that it stand with me -- <br>Or take up an inferior position beneath me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For my sad heart breaks into pieces at the thought <br>That there are no noble-hearted souls taking my part;<br>That to no purpose do I cast impassioned words <br>Filled with tears, blood and brilliant flashes<br>On hearts that remain repellent to me -- I <br>Who also have a land that is rich in flowering meads,<br>A native land flowing with blood and milk: <br>And it ought likewise to love me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>If you -- you! -- are without hearts, then my heart <br>Shall feel for you; shall forgive without measure.<br>River Ikwa! Inundate this carpet of green meadows! <br>You too have renown, for it is as if your lapping waves<br>Were weighing matters of colossal moment with the Niemen -- <br>It was you who forced old Niemen to confess<br>My greatness: that we are flowing forward to glory. . . <br>But he said: Let him go where we go. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But oh my Prophet-Bard! Where are you going? <br>What harbor beacon lights your way, and where?<br>Either you founder in the depths of Slavonic atavism <br>Or with your lightning mind you sweep up<br>The refuse and drive it at the Pontiff's triple crown. <br>I know your harbors and coastlands! I shall not go<br>With you, or go your false way -- I shall take <br>Another road! -- and the nation will go with me! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>If it should chose to love, I shall give it a swan's voice, <br>That it might sing out its love. If it should chose to curse,<br>It will curse through me; should it chose to burn -- <br>I shall furnish the heat: I shall lead it wherever God<br>Would take it -- to infinity -- in every direction. <br>My name will serve as a vessel for its blood and tears.<br>My standard shall never play it false: by day <br>It will shine like the sun, by night, like a fiery cloud. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah! So you show up at last, my knight? <br>Now I shall have at you with my sword!<br>First I shall show you the sun reflected in my shield, <br>Then before the sun I shall unbosom you of fear. . .<br>I shall reveal the falsehood in your latest orison, <br>And, with that falsehood shown, deal your death blow;<br>I gaze on your face -- green in the night like the moon -- <br>So have you renounced the power of the sun? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I told you that you were like a Lithuanian deity rising <br>Out of a holy place embosomed by dark pines;<br>Clutched in your hand like a celestial moon was a cross; <br>On your lips, flashing like a lightning bolt, was the word.<br>And saying this -- am I not the son of song? A king's son! -- <br>I fell. -- And you stepped up -- did you not? --<br>To place your foot upon me as though I were dead <br>And I rose -- having merely feigned terror and death! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>You will always find me standing before your eyes --<br>Unshakable, proud and terrible. . . I am not you --<br>You are not an Eternal Flame. And even if you are <br>A god -- I at least am a living one!<br>Ready to lash a graven image with my snaking whip <br>So long as you drive this world down a false path. . .<br>I cherish our people more than dead men's bones. . . <br>I love -- but I am without mercy and tears </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For the vanquished. -- Such is my panoply of arms! <br>And such is the sorcerer's magic of my thoughts!<br>Though you may oppose me today, the future is mine! -- <br>Victory shall be mine -- beyond the grave. . .<br>The Troy of your poets shall fall at my feet, <br>No Hector's courage of yours will save her.<br>God has charged the future with my defense:-- <br>I shall slay you -- draw your corpse behind me! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And let the ages pass judgment. -- Keep well, my Bard! <br>With you this song began, ancient deity!<br>I have laved your bays in a rain of burning words <br>And shown that a broken heart can be traced<br>Upon your bark -- your trembling leafage <br>Reveals a dry rot gnawing at your soul.<br>Keep well! Foes do not bid farewell like this, <br>Only two divinities -- upon opposite-facing suns.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Juliusz+Slowacki">Juliusz Slowacki</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=427902" data-title="Pan Beniowski - Final Part Of Canto Five de Juliusz Slowacki" data-description="Surging like a vast current of salmon or sheatfish, 
Coiling up and down like an iron serpent 
That rears now its torso, now its head, 
The armed horsemen breast the prairie grass. -- 
But hold! my song's device breaks down: 
My Muse begs a rest, ..."></div>
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