Thammasat University students interested in Western civilization, literature, culture, European history, sociology, philosophy, metaphysics, Poland, Lithuania, and related subjects may find a book newly acquired by the TU Library useful.
Metaphysical Poems by Adam Mickiewicz is an Open Access book available for free download at this link:
https://brill.com/display/title/64104?rskey=RwDMdF&result=3
Adam Mickiewicz was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, and political activist. He is considered as a national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is regarded as Poland’s greatest poet. He is also appreciated as one of the greatest Slavic and European poets, compared to Byron and Goethe.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes another books with scholarly research on Mickiewicz.
The epic poem Pan Tadeusz (Sir Thaddeus) is one of Mickiewicz’s most celebrated works. It begins:
Lithuania, my homeland! You are like good health:
Only fully valued by someone
who has lost you.
The website of Poland’s Adam Mickiewicz Institute notes:
A great romanticist and a man of action, the Institute’s patron understood well that ideas influence reality. Perhaps during his times, when Poland was absent from the map of Europe, it was easier to see the great importance of culture. After all, it was thanks to culture that the idea of Poland survived with no country or economy for 123 years. Culture was the main link uniting Poles in the fight for independence.
Today, Poland is an independent country that grows stronger and stronger. However, culture still evokes great emotions. The Institute’s motto: “Polish culture – seriously” is a reflection of how important culture is to us and how seriously we treat it. Poles’ high regard towards culture is Poland’s best showpiece abroad.
As we begin 2021, feeling the effects of the pandemic, we see even more clearly that culture is a unifying factor. This is exactly how culture was perceived by the Institute’s patron, Adam Mickiewicz, whose work, attitude, ideas, and creativity inspire the Institute’s activities.
Here are some sample poems by Mickiewicz from the new Open Access collection:
*
To Solitude
O, solitude! To you I rush as to water,
Escaping from the heat of daily life:
With such delight I fall into your cooling light
Into your bottomless, crystalline depth.
I dive and I leap up to the thoughts above my thoughts, 5
I play with them as if they were waves,
Until, cooled down, I lay my corpse to sleep,
To give it rest, at least, just for a while.
You are my element! This watery clear glass
Cools down my heart and covers the senses in the dark, 10
Why, oh why do I have to be this bird-fish thing
That throws itself into the air to seek the sun?
Thus, without breath above, and without warmth below,
There and here, I ever remain an exile all the same!
[spring 1832]
*
[Defend Me from Myself …]
Defend me from myself: you have the power;
For sometimes I can see your books right through,
Like sunlight’s beams which penetrate the fog:
To us it’s golden; to the sun it’s dark.
Yet we are greater than the sun and know 5
That gold-dark veil was made by our own eyes.
I see you, eye to eye, and by the hands
I hold you and I cry: “Reveal yourself!”
Then overpower me or else confess
That you but equal me in strength and wit. 10
Your own beginning is unknown to you:
And do we know how long we’ve been on earth?
You play self-searching from eternity,
And what do we? We dig through history.
Your wisdom cannot penetrate your depth. 15
Can we fathom ourselves? We never can.
You know not death; we are immortal too;
You know yourself and yet remain unknown,
As we don’t know ourselves. When will you end?
And when will we? You join, divide yourself, 20
As we divide and join ourselves as well.
You are distinct: we differ by our thoughts;
You are the same; we are one in the heart.
You’re mighty in the sky, we watch the stars;
You are great in the seas, we’ve made it ours. 25
Your brilliance knows no sunrise or sunset:
Then tell me how you differ from mankind.
You fight the devil in heaven, and on earth;
As we wage war within against our whims.
You took the form of Man. Just for a while? 30
Or did you have it since all time began?
[1833–1836?]
*
[You Ask Me Why the Lord Gave Me a Little Fame …]
You ask me why the Lord gave me a little fame?
For what I thought and wanted, not for what I’ve done.
The poetry of life is our desires and thoughts:
They bloom like flowers in spring, they wither and are gone.
But deeds are just like seeds which, buried in the soil, 5
The next year bear the fruit and the wealth of new seeds.
A time will come when the glittering names will rot,
While quiet seeds will grow and cover the whole world.
Noise passes; we must pass, with all the shine and talk.
Only the meek are blessed: they will possess the world. 10
But listen to Christ’s words and understand the truth:
Who wants to possess the earth, must first in silence sit.
[1833–1836]
*
[Spin Love …]
Spin love like silkworms, from the source within,
Pour it out like water coming from a spring,
Forge it like golden brass from golden seeds,
Let it come back inside as hidden streams.
Let it blow up like wind into the sky, 5
Let it be sown like corn into the soil,
Nurse it maternally for others’ sake.
And if you do it, first your power will be
Like Nature’s energy in elements,
Then like the power of growth and life, and Man, 10
Then it will be like angels’. In the end,
It will be the Creator’s power divine.
1839, Lausanne
*
[To Fly Away with the Soul …]
To fly away with the soul to a little leaf, like a butterfly, to look
for a little house and a little nest there –
[1839–1840]
*
[To Listen to the Sound of Water Cold and Still …]
To listen to the sound of water cold and still,
To read its waves like signs and learn its inmost thoughts,
To give myself to wind, which flies through unknown paths
In its swirling motion, counting every sound.
To dive in the womb of a river like a fish –
To see with its own eyes, as motionless as stars …
[1842?]
*
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)