Cyprian Norwid: Two poems

On board the 'Margaret Evans' sailing this day to New York
London, December 1852, 10am

   I
Occasional sun squibs glisten on sails,
Brush the masts and splash on waves;
Mists disappear like a woman's veil,
Behind it rise ruin-like clouds!..

   II
'Why ruins? And why a veil?
Why a woman's...?' Let the critic demand,
Let him blame the Muse for the muddled
Concepts in her mind –

   III
I don't know... I see and sketch this sadly
As though I were one of the flying cranes
That drag their shadow across the sails
Not thinking whether any trace remains...

   IV
I don't know... the end, perhaps I never do,
But...
         (here the helmsman cried)
                                                 – Adieu!


Nerves

Yesterday I went to a place
Where people die of hunger;
Inspecting tomb-like rooms
I slipped on an unpredicted stair.

It must have been a miracle, surely it was,
That I clutched at a rotten plank
(In it a nail as in the arms of a cross!...)
I escaped with my life!

But carried away only half my heart.
Of mirth? Barely a trace!
I bypassed the crowd like a cattle mart,
I was sick of the world...

Today I must call on the Baroness
Who, sitting on a satin couch,
Entertains with largesse –
But tell her what?

                             Mirrors will crack,
Candelabra shudder at the realism
And painted parrots
From beak to beak cry 'Socialism!'
Along the length of the ceiling.

So: I will take a seat
Hat in hand, then put it down,
And when the party's done,
Go home a silent hypocrite.


Excellent translations by Adam Czerniawski. Only animal poems tangentially, but the images of the cranes (not thinking whether any trace remains) and of the painted parrots crying Socialism! are unforgettable. I doubt that Norwid saw any cranes as his ship sailed from London: it must have been a memory from his native Poland. The poetry Norwid produced from his post-Romantic neuroses was revolutionary, even more extraordinary than that of Baudelaire who was his exact contemporary (and for many years a fellow Parisian, although the two never met).