Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/37



Poetry, in the nineteenth century, stands in striking contrast with contemporary literature. While the latter has fallen under the corrupting influence of the schools, has proclaimed art for the sake of art, and voluntarily restricted its empire to the mysteries of the worship of the Muses, the former has pursued another path, and Poetry has remained in Poland, what it ought ever to be in the heart of a great people, the vigorous and spontaneous expression of the feelings and thoughts which constitute the spirit of the nation. From this common fund have the poets, or, to use their own language, the "prophets" of Poland, drawn all their inspiration; and prophets they really are, for like tongues of fire they were given to their people to express all their hopes and all their agonies.

They cling to a firm belief in the Resurrection of their Country, but no more than the patriotic feeling which engenders it is this faith confined to themselves, for however irreconcilable it may seem with the actual fate of Poland, it is, nevertheless, found in all Polish souls impressed by an internal conviction far more powerful than the external evidence of the moment.

Is it not indeed truly surprising to see this People, which, in the day of its greatest prosperity, and two centuries before its fall, had the fatal foreknowledge of that fall, 31