Baktschi Serai

In ruin are the spacious, splendid halls
        With frozen forest of white columns where
The Tartar Khan his palace builded fair,
        Where loneliest the shrilling cricket calls.
The ivy blackens over shining walls
        Enscribing in gigantic letters there
Some curse Belshazzar-like: Beware! Beware!--
        Then black as crepe from crested columns falls.

Within the burnished banquet room there sings
        The fountain of the harem pure and clear,
Just as of old it sang in twilights drear.
        But whither love and fame speed--on what wings?
When all things else must perish these endure!
        Yet both are gone! The fountain ripples pure.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, and professor. He is regarded as one of Poland's greatest Romantic poets and is a leading figure in Polish Romanticism. Mickiewicz's major works include the epic poem 'Pan Tadeusz,' a national epic of Poland, set during the Napoleonic era. His works often reflect themes of Polish nationalism and patriotism, and he became an important symbol of the Polish struggle for independence.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

The Grave Of Countess Potocka

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz, Simple Poetry

Becalmed

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz, Simple Poetry

Tschatir Dagh (Mirza)

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz, Simple Poetry

Mountains From The Keslov Steppe

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz, Simple Poetry

English

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Baktschi Serai By Night

From out the mosques the pious wend their way;
        Muezzin voices tremble through the night;
Within the sky the pallid King of Light
        Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may,
And Heaven's harem greets its star array.
        One lone white cloud rests in the azure height--
A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight--
        Whom cruel love and day have cast away.

The mosques stand there; and here tall cypress trees;
        There--mountains, towering, black as demons frown,
Which Lucifer in rage from God cast down.
        Like sword blades lightning flickers over these,
And on an Arab steed the wild Khan rides
        Who goes to Baktschi Serai which night hides.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

The Ruins Of Balaclava

Oh, thankless Crimean land! in ruin laid
        Are now the castles that were once your pride!
Here serpents and the owls from daylight hide,
        And robbers arm them for the nightly raid.
Upon the lettered marble boasts are made,
        Brave words on battered arms in gold descried,
And broken splendor years have scattered wide,
        Beside the dead who made them are arrayed.

The Greek set shining, columned marble here.
        The Latin put the Mongol horde to flight,
And Mussulmans prayed eastward morn and night.
        The owl and vulture of dark wing and drear
Are fluttering like black banners overhead
        In cities where the pest piles high the dead.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

Tschatir Dagh (The Pilgrim)

Below me half a world I see outspread;
        Above, blue heaven; around, peaks of snow;
And yet the happy pulse of life is slow,
        I dream of distant places, pleasures dead.
The woods of Lithuania I would tread
        Where happy-throated birds sing songs I know;
Above the trembling marshland I would go
        Where chill-winged curlews dip and call o'er head.

A tragic, lonely terror grips my heart,
        A longing for some peaceful, gentle place,
And memories of youthful love I trace.
        Unto my childhood home I long to start,
And yet if all the leaves my name could cry
        She would not pause nor heed as she passed by.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

Mountains From The Keslov Steppe

(Pilgrim)

What would Great Allah with the frozen sea?
        Would he of icy clouds a throne carve bright,
Or would the demons of the deepest night
        A bar build where the shining stars sweep free?
It gleams like pagan cities fired, kings flee.
        When Day was anciently destroyed by Night
Did Allah amid chaos fix this light
        To guide the star-worlds of eternity?

(Mirza)

Up there I've journeyed where the winter reigns,
        And seen the rivers bitten black like lines
On Tschatir Dagh, where the white cloud reclines,
        Which not the wildest eagle's shadow stains,
Where cradled under me the thunders sleep
        And Allah and the stars their watches keep.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

Baydary

Give wings unto the storm, and spurs to steed,
        I'd move unchained as wind across the world,
Sweep onward like a torrent mountain-hurled,
        Nor sea, nor height, nor valley pause to heed.
The twilight spreads a dimness o'er our speed,
        And shows the diamond-stars from hoofs up-whirled,
Since daylight now her curtained blue has juried,
        And mystery and magic shadows breed.

The earth sleeps, but not I--not I--not I--
        Who hasten to the shore where waves are loud
And toward me in the darkness whitely crowd.
        Beneath them I would still my soul's deep cry--
Like ships the whirlpools seize to drag to death--
        I'd plunge within the silence, sans thought, breath.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

The Pass Across The Abyss In The Tschufut-Kale

(Mirza)

Pray! Pray! Let loose the bridle. Look not down!
        The humble horse alone has wisdom here.
He knows where blackest the abysses leer
        And where the path in safety leads us down.
Pray, and look upward to the mountain's crown!
        The deep below is endless where you peer;
Stretch not the hand out as you pass, for fear
        The added weight of that might plunge you down.

And check your thoughts' free flight, too, while you go;
        Let all of Fancy's fluttering sails be furled
Here where Death watches o'er the riven world.

(Pilgrim)

        I lived to cross the bridge of ancient snow!
                But what I saw my tongue no more can tell,
        The angels only could rehearse that well.


(MIRZA...

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz