40
PARTISAN REVIEW
a doe runs in the hills and cries her exul ting songs,
tall-stemmed flowers are bloom.ing, steam rises from warm gardens,
Children throw balls, they dance on the meadow by threesomes,
women wash linen at streamside and fish for the moon.
All joy comes from the earth, there is no delight wi thout her,
man is given
to
the earth, let him desire no other. [...
1
Not bad for a 23-year-old. 1934.
In
1944, well into the occupation ofWarsaw,
he wrote an uncharacteristic poem. We'll be talking in some detail about the
most famous poem of these years, "The World." But he also wrote a series of
poems called "Songs of Adrian Zielihsky," which are about a poet with nor–
mal aesthetic ambi tions wri ting poetry in wartime. They could have just been
ironic, but it's not in his character to just be ironic. Here's the first one. [Reads
poem.] Within a year, at the end of the war, he wrote another most extraor–
dinary poem, when a gesture was needed to lay to rest the 250,000 people
killed by the German army in the Warsaw uprising. It's called "Dedication."
You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand th.is simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you wi th silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell
to
an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.
Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city,
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.
What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance wi th official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.
