Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/20

 14 valiant “Polish soul” to my countrymen! Strong enough to point out to future translators the unexplored treasures of Polish literature, in order that in more inspired versions they may yet place “The Undivine Comedy” and “Iridion” where they deserve to rank,—after Dante and Shakespeare, among the loftiest creations of human genius.

I know that through the medium of a less impassioned language, and deprived of their exquisite form and bold and undulating rhythm, these poems will seem cold and imperfect in your eyes, but I beg of you to pardon the deficiencies, because of the difficulty of the task and the love and reverence which prompt its execution.

Whatever the material, venal, and passing phantoms of the hour may seem to say, believe not that American hearts have ceased to beat in unison with yours! Your courageous struggles for “a country” maybe still misrepresented and misunderstood; the brilliant serf-emancipation in Russia may for a time dazzle us into ignorance of the atrocious torments to which you are subjected, but misconception not voluntary cannot long endure, the Sun of Truth is everywhere rising and everywhere dispersing the mists of falsehood under its happy light, true republicans will learn that “the path to freedom lies not through the charnel-house.” Right, not might, is the cornerstone of God's kingdom upon earth!

Liberty, justice, equality before the law, and self-government, are the normal dogmas of our political creed; to renounce them were to stultify ourselves. They are cornerstones in the temple we are building for the refuge of men; to uproot them were to bring it in ruins about our own heads.

We know that, tortured and mutilated, Poland still lives, and that, at every banquet of the “Holy Alliance,” her grand and bloody form rises from her three graves to appal the three crowned and rival murderers of a nation. For she is buried, not in the corruption of the grave, but in the loyal hearts of her patriotic and tortured children, in the living sympathies of all who love virtue, self-sacrifice, and heroism, and in the eternal justice of God;—therefore is her resurrection certain!