Song of a Citizen
A stone from the depths that has witnessed the seas drying up
and a million white fish leaping in agony,
I, poor man, see a multitude of white-bellied nations
without freedom. I see the crab feeding on their flesh.
I have seen the fall of States and the perdition of tribes,
the flight of kings and emperors, the power of tyrants.
I can say now, in this hour,
that I – am, while everything expires,
that it is better to be a live dog than a dead lion[1],
as the Scripture says.
A poor man, sitting on a cold chair, pressing my eyelids,
I sigh and think of a starry sky,
of non-Euclidean space[2], of amoebas and their pseudopodia[3],
of tall mounds of termites.
When walking, I am asleep, when sleeping, I dream reality,
pursued and covered with sweat, I run.
On city squares lifted up by the glaring dawn,
beneath marble remnants of blasted-down gates,
I deal in vodka and gold.
And yet so often I was near,
I reached into the heart of metal, the soul of earth, of fire, of water.
And the unknown unveiled its face
as a night reveals itself, serene, mirrored by tide.
Lustrous copper-leaved gardens greeted me
that disappear as soon as you touch them.
And so near, just outside the window – the greenhouse of the worlds
where a tiny beetle and a spider are equal to planets,
where a wandering atom flares up like Saturn,
and, close by, harvesters drink from a cold jug
in scorching summer.
This I wanted and nothing more. In my later years
like old Goethe[4] to stand before the face of the earth,
and recognize it and reconcile it
with my work built up, a forest citadel
on a river of shifting lights and brief shadows.
This I wanted and nothing more. So who
is guilty? Who deprived me
of my youth and my ripe years, who seasoned
my best years with horror? Who,
who ever is to blame, who, O God?
And I can think only about the starry sky,
about the tall mounds of termites.
Czeslaw Milosz, 1943
[1] Allusion to Ecclesiastes 9:4: “But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
[2] Space that cannot be measured by the simple geometric rules defined by the Greek mathematical Euclid (300 B.C.)
[3] Footlike projections used for moving and for taking in food
[4] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) – German writer who sought the meaning of life
A stone from the depths that has witnessed the seas drying up
and a million white fish leaping in agony,
I, poor man, see a multitude of white-bellied nations
without freedom. I see the crab feeding on their flesh.
I have seen the fall of States and the perdition of tribes,
the flight of kings and emperors, the power of tyrants.
I can say now, in this hour,
that I – am, while everything expires,
that it is better to be a live dog than a dead lion[1],
as the Scripture says.
A poor man, sitting on a cold chair, pressing my eyelids,
I sigh and think of a starry sky,
of non-Euclidean space[2], of amoebas and their pseudopodia[3],
of tall mounds of termites.
When walking, I am asleep, when sleeping, I dream reality,
pursued and covered with sweat, I run.
On city squares lifted up by the glaring dawn,
beneath marble remnants of blasted-down gates,
I deal in vodka and gold.
And yet so often I was near,
I reached into the heart of metal, the soul of earth, of fire, of water.
And the unknown unveiled its face
as a night reveals itself, serene, mirrored by tide.
Lustrous copper-leaved gardens greeted me
that disappear as soon as you touch them.
And so near, just outside the window – the greenhouse of the worlds
where a tiny beetle and a spider are equal to planets,
where a wandering atom flares up like Saturn,
and, close by, harvesters drink from a cold jug
in scorching summer.
This I wanted and nothing more. In my later years
like old Goethe[4] to stand before the face of the earth,
and recognize it and reconcile it
with my work built up, a forest citadel
on a river of shifting lights and brief shadows.
This I wanted and nothing more. So who
is guilty? Who deprived me
of my youth and my ripe years, who seasoned
my best years with horror? Who,
who ever is to blame, who, O God?
And I can think only about the starry sky,
about the tall mounds of termites.
Czeslaw Milosz, 1943
[1] Allusion to Ecclesiastes 9:4: “But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
[2] Space that cannot be measured by the simple geometric rules defined by the Greek mathematical Euclid (300 B.C.)
[3] Footlike projections used for moving and for taking in food
[4] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) – German writer who sought the meaning of life