’Twas not for earthly glory that I rushed
So oft on swords and shot. To me more sweet
’Tis to remember, not loud, valorous deeds,
But silent actions, useful sufferings,
Which none—
“Not one time only did I penetrate
Unto my country, bearing the commands
Of generals, collecting information,
Concluding treaties. The Galicians know
This monkish hood, the Poseners know it too.
One year I laboured in a Prussian fortress;
Three times the Muscovites did wound my shoulders
With sticks, once sent me to Siberia;
The Austrians then in Spielberg buried me
To labour in their dungeons—carcer durum.
The Lord by miracle delivered me,
Permitting me to die among my people,
And with the sacraments.
“Perhaps ev’n now, who knows, maybe I sinned,
Maybe beyond the generals’ commands,
I hurried insurrection on. This thought,
That the Soplica house should arm the first—
My kinsmen the first Horseman should upraise
In Litva—this thought—seemeth pure—
“Thou didst desire revenge? Behold, thou hast it!
For thou wast instrument of God’s chastising;
Heaven by thy means did cut my measures through.
Thou didst the thread so many years had spun
Tangle; the great aim which consumed my life,
My latest earthly feeling in the world,
Which I had cherished as my dearest child,
Thou in its father’s eyes hast slain, and I
Forgive thee! Thou”— “May Heaven forgive us both!”
The Klucznik broke in. “If thou art about
To take the sacrament, Friar Jacek, I
Am neither Lutheran, nor schismatic.242 Who
Afflicts the dying, I know sins heavily.
I’ll tell thee somewhat that will sure rejoice thee.
When my deceasèd master wounded fell,
And I bent o’er him, kneeling, and my sword
Steeped in his wound, and swore revenge, my lord
Did shake his head, his hand stretched towards the gate,
To where thou wert, and in the air he signed
The cross. He could not speak, but gave this sign
That he forgave his murderer. I this
Did understand, but I so mad with rage
Was then, I ne’er a word spoke of this cross.”
The sick man’s sufferings here broke off discourse,
And one long hour of silence followed then.
They wait the priest. The sound of hoofs was heard;
A breathless tenant at the chamber knocked.
He bears a letter of importance, shows it
To Jacek’s self. Then Jacek to his brother
Gives it, and him desires to read aloud.
The letter was from Fisher, at that time
Commanding in the staff of Poland’s army, under
Prince Joseph. He announced, that in the secret
Imperial cabinet was war declared;
The Emperor now proclaims it to the world.
The Diet is in Warsaw summoned, and
The States Confederate of Masovia have
Decreed the union of Litvania.243
Jacek, in hearing, spoke a silent prayer.
A sacred taper pressing to his breast,
He raised to heaven his eyes, alight with hope,
And shed a flood of last and joyful tears.
“Now, Lord,” he said, “let thou thy servant part
In peace.” All knelt; just then upon the threshold
A bell did sound, a sign the parish priest
Had with the Host arrived. Night now had fled,
And through the milky heaven did course the first
Bright, rosy sunbeams. Through the window-panes
They fell like diamond arrows. On the couch
They shone reflected from the sick man’s head,
And dressed in gold his brow and countenance,
That like a saint he shone in fiery crown.
Book XI
The Year 1812
Spring omens—Entrance of armies—Divine service—Official rehabilitation of Jacek Soplica—The end ofthe lawsuit near at hand, to be inferred from the conversation of Gervasy and Protasy—Love-scene between the lancer and the maiden—The dispute concerning Kusy and Sokol is decided—The guests assemble for the banquet—Presentation of the betrothed couples to the generals.
Thou year! who in our country thee beheld,
The year of beauty calls thee even now,
But year of war the soldier; even yet
Our elders love to tell of thee, even now
Song dreameth of thee. Long wert thou proclaimed
By heavenly miracle, and thee forestalled
Dumb rumours ’mid the people; all the hearts
Of the Litvini with the sun of spring
Were girdled by some strange presentiment,
As though before the ending of the world;
Some expectation full of joy and fear.
When first they drove the cattle forth in spring,
’Twas marked, though lean and famished, they did not
Rush on the winter-corn, green on the glebe;
But lay down on the mead, with heads bowed down,
To low, or chew the cud of winter food.
At The villagers, who led the plough on field,
Now scarce rejoiced as they were wont to do
At ending of long winter, for no song
They sang; they laboured idly, as they neither
Recalled the seed-time nor the harvest.
Each step they stayed the oxen and the ponies
In harness, and with anxious heart they gazed
Towards the western quarter, as from thence
Some miracle should be revealed, and marked
With anxious heart the homeward flying birds.
For even thus early to his native pine
The stork was flying, widely he unfurled
His white wings, early standard of the spring.
And after him in noisy regiments came
Upon the waters swallows gathering thick,
Who from the late-thawed earth collected mud
To build their houses. And at eventide
The arriving woodcocks whispering were heard
Among the thickets, and the wild-goose flock
Murmured above the wood, and wearied fell
Down with great uproar, for a halt, and in
The sky’s dark depth the cranes continual cry.
Hearing, the nightly guards inquire in fear,
Whence in the wingèd kingdom such confusion?
What storm thus early drives the birds away?
And now behold a newer flock, that seems
Finches and plovers, starlings, flock of shining
Crests and of standards; brightly on the hills
They shone, and on the plains they make descent.
The cavalry! Adornments wondrous, arms
Invisible, troop after troop; in midst
Like melted snows, along the highways, glide
Ranks sheathed in iron, from out the woods their caps
Swarm blackly, and a row of bayonets gleams;
The ant-hill’s swarming infantry unnumbered.
All towards the north! It certain might be said
That in that migratory time even men,
Following the birds, were marching to our land,
Impelled by some mysterious instinct force.
Men, horses, guns, and eagles, day and night
Flow onward; in the sky flame here and there
Wide blazes, earth is trembling, one may hear
The thunders smite on every side. War! war!
In Litva there is not a foot of land
Whereto its uproar does not penetrate.
’Mid the dark forest-lands the peasant, all
Whose parents and whose ancestors have died,
Not having passed beyond the forest’s
