NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 29, 5 August 1925, Page 34

NOTES

By Eileen Duggan

A Great Pole A fine and noble band of poets have dealt with their nation’s agony, but, they cannot all be reviewed here. Let ns take one who is typical of them all — Sigmund Krasinski. He unites in himself the piercing grandeur of Mickievicx, the wondering terror of Slowacki, and the sorrowful faith of Ujejski. One only differs from him ‘ essentially, and this is the Singer of the Steppes, the Ukrainian, Bohdan Zaleski, who painted Poland not as a grieving mother, but as a repentant Magdalen. In’ a truly wonderful novel Victor Oherbuliez gives us a picture of the surpassing love of the Poles for their unhappy land. ;

Yesterday I was reading Conrad’s Prince ‘ltoman, one of his last tales. It is from an emotional point of view, one of his finest writings, for in it Conrad, for the first and ■the last time, speaks out as a Pole. Only once, but that once nobly, has he spoken out his full mind

. ■ Victor Cherbuliez tells a story of a Polish boy of seventeen who sooner than betray under torture the names of his comrades •set; fire to his pallet and burned himself to death. That recalls the story of a youth as -young, who when shown his gallows and offered pardon if he gave King’s evidence, said with exquisite courtesy, ('Gentlemen, your ' arrangements are excellent. Now lead me back to my cell.”

H Russia sent her rebels to Siberia and there they toiled underground, singing in - a whisper their sweet forbidden songs, only to be knouted if an echo reached their captors. Behind barred doors, and beneath the ground, Krasinski’s songs were heard.

Hfs Poems

In his first poem, the “Undivine Comedy,” he showed that no nation can be freed by hate., Love alone is the salvation of peoples, and the cross is its eternal symbol. But as his next drama, “Irydion,” showed, he himself was not purged of hatred of Russia. ‘ But nothing can be more noble than his cry to Poland, “Go to the North in the name of Christ! For the second time thou shalt see thy love transpierced, dying: and the sufferings of thousands shall be borne in thy one heart. Go and act

and thou shalt rise, and thou shalt be the free son of heaven.” This was a cry of hope, but he passed through ,:a period when he despaired of himself and of ■ his country. Too noble to despair long, lie ( was granted a wider vision in which Faith land -country were united. He saw clearly -/that Poland’s sufferings resembled those of

Christ. This gave him the hope he sought. j Christ, was crucified in ignominy, but death was the price of resurrection, resurrection

the price of redemption. Christ died to save men, Poland must die to save the nations. EReaders of Pearse will note tile parallel.

His^Creed

Poland became to Krasinski, “No more to me my country merely but faith and right.” He himself was withheld from her by the ban of a rigid father to whom he pleaded in vain. So sure was he now of his creed that he could lay loving lips to the chalice of suffering. He gave thanks to God “for pains of body, for pains of soul, for the century of opr' torments, because though wo are weak and poor, yet from our sorrows has begun Thy kingdom on this earth.”

In a later poem he repeats it more firmly: “Poland is anointed in Thy spirit if she is not ashamed of her crown of thorns, and will understand that Thou lovest without measure tiro sons whom Thou dost crown with thorns.”

His Faith was soon after to be tried. The Galician rising with its. attendant massacre broke the heart of Krasinski, but even in dying he cried it aloud. “I die,” he wrote to a friend, but ray creed will conquer.” Ho cried another, not a Pole, dying on his prison bed. In his last poem, “The Psalm of Goodwill,” he cries to Mary in agony to kneel before her son and stretch her hands and cry to Him to save poor Poland. The Psalm closes with this majestic prayer: “We ask of Thee, God, not hope. It is strewn as a flower not the death of our —their death dawns on to-morrow’s clouds, not the weapon .of power, or any help, save a pure will.” It was his last prayer.

During his lifetime he wrote as the Anonymous Poet of Poland. His father’s connection, his wilful connection with Russia, tore his heart. He „was forbidden to fight for Poland. He would write for Poland. But would Poland trust in the faith or the songs of the sou of his father! That was the question that he asked of himself in agony. And so he wrote his heart out in those great poems. No one could have seen clearer into the heart of Poland at that time than the man who could not be in Poland. Ho was the son who loved her, and could hot go to her in her need. It seems difficult to believe that - a father could have such power over a son. In these days the son would claim the rights of his nationhood, but parental authority was almost sacred in those days.

Yet in spite of all he attained to certain sad, high serenity The end of his troubled life was peace And through all the storm his Faith never faltered. ,

An American naturalist, Theodore Long, tells of- a strange experience he had one night in the depths of a forest during a wild storm. The night was black with rain and wind the rain lashed, the wind roared. Suddenly through the tumult he heard, clear and triumphant, a small bird’s song. It was a white-throat sparrow, that awakened by the clangor,' sang its song of infinite faith.

That is how one likes to think of Krasinski, v ns a bird that sings through the storm and dark/ innocent, gallant, triumphant. 1 •; -v ' : l ■ '. ■ - U' V m