For Juliusz Kronski in Paris
Within the dim gentle on the trampled grasses
Women lie nonetheless with troopers of their arms.
Till the picture alters: darkish look
Of a shoulder, an unbuttoned shirt.
Bushes spring from the traditional bedrock
And the sprays of leaves fall like chords.
When nature turns into a theatre,
The silvery equipment of the skyline shifts.
The summits of the summary metropolis quiver
Below murky rainbows within the humid air.
Honeycombs of steel, or stalactites,
Divide the gap into sheer domains.
· · ·
I keep in mind a area the place the radiance
Of the burning metropolis colours the dry wormwood
And crickets play, pink from the glow,
Via which a military of smoke marches.
The water speeding alongside the highway flutters
The gown on the corpse of a lady,
As town descends lengthy days and nights
Into legend, which gained’t compensate for its disasters.
This reminiscence comprises a warning for these
Who spend their nights on delicate couches:
An errant hearth will usually burn proper by means of
The rosy stains on bedsheets.
Whoever enters the human microcosmos
The place marvels are carried out ought to know
That it delivers, serenely, each day,
The retributions of a malignant destiny.
They don’t hear this. As if the contemporary earth
Had introduced forth the primary palm after the flood,
Trembling, they enter the quiet groves of intercourse
And easily give themselves to one another.
And but even right here, in the course of Manhattan,
I might see how, at a warning sound,
Their faces blanch within the glare of the display
And sudden fright weakens their legs.
Right here, within the line of automobiles alongside fifth Avenue,
I see how the ambassador’s limousine glides
Previous the white masts on which varied flags
Of fictitious coloration sway in a light breeze.
The poor envoys. Their labors are nice,
As they, eyes asquint, compose a holy covenant
With duplicitous ink, or the pact
Between the Athenians and the Lacedemonians.
And what kind of energy was granted to us,
Juliusz, after we foresaw the destiny
Of our native realm, which was to be introduced
Below the militarized ft of international powers.
We had barely mourned in our secret hearts
That Europe, mom of arts and sciences
With its previous knowledge and bloody cobblestones,
As we positioned it on the scales reverse the brand new religion.
Trying calmly at power, we all know that those
Who wish to rule the world will go away
And we all know that it isn’t at all times mandatory
To reside by the knife and the submachine gun.
We all know that the ingenuity of our weapons
Is disastrous, that the whirlwind shreds banners,
And that the heirs to the glory of the Greek title
(However glory, our heritage from Greece)
Will final so long as humankind lasts.
And that this age of darkness will go the best way winters
Go when robust sap rises beneath the brittle bark.
The smile of the Sophists, as in papal Rome,
Will knock the pen from the hand of the Inquisitors.
Simply as as soon as upon a time books have been introduced
From Constantinople to the northern lands,
The voices of sensible males within the wild lands
Will turn out to be a supply of inventive energy.
It’s this honor, Juliusz, that’s granted us:
To resurrect new kinds, cast of gold.
Regardless of the leisurely tempo of change,
To combine valiant drinks for the longer term.
Greet the Parisian streets for me, please,
And the fountain within the Luxembourg Gardens.
Likewise the Seine the place, to this present day, I can see
The Cathedral’s arches and the sleeping boats.
I don’t know whether or not Montaigne’s monument
Nonetheless stands, whose white marble lips
A lady, as a joke, has painted blush pink,
And run off, decreasing her head in laughter.
There are, in response to the Greek philosophers,
Seven phases to the journey. We will not be acquainted
With all of them, so let this wandering highway
Via the ashes of struggle be your chosen path.
And obtain as a present a day’s description
Of this excessively proud land
And with it my hope that books will protect
This little drawing of Central Park.
Washington, D.C., 1948
—Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004)
(Translated, from the Polish, by Robert Hass and David Frick.)
“That is drawn from “Poet within the New World: Poems, 1946-1953.”
