On Reserve
Spotlight -
Longfello, Mickiewixcz
by Artur Wielgus
Henry Longfellow (1807-1882)
Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
Commemorating the 200th anniversary of Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow birth.
Henry Longfellow was among the first of American writers to use
native themes.
These two poets lived in the same literary epoch of Romanticism,
sheared the same ideas, philosophy of life and similar lives. Both
were university professors. Longfellow worked as a professor in
Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and later began teaching in
Harvard.
Mickiewicz was a professor in Sorbonne University in Paris, France.
Two people that lived in the same time, never knew one another, did
not speak the same language and lived half a world apart, were very
close in their thoughts, wrote on a similar topics, shared the same
ideas in the Epoch, which did not had telephones, radio or TV. Such
was the universal spirit of time.
Both of them are praising life and its struggles for achieving
perfection in their poems: These two poems, A Psalm of Life and Ode
to the Youth, which have similar text, could have been written by
either of them and sometimes one may have impression as if these two
poems have one author.
Longfellow reminds us that we ought to leave for the posterity
footprints on the sand of time.
Even though Mickiewicz’s poem is less spiritual, nevertheless it is
peace oriented. He expects us to change the world for the better,
which we can metaphorically express as leaving behind us the
“Footprints on the sand of time”. He is expressing similar thoughts
by his statements:
Reach there, where eyesight won’t reach;
brake, what mind won’t brake.
Youth! Eagle’s might is your flight,
as a thunder is your arm.
© Art Wielgus 2007
A Psalm Of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882)
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Ode to the Youth by Adam Mickiewicz (1798 – 1855)
Without hearts, souls, these are the skeletal people.
Add me the wings, adolescence!
Beyond lifeless world let me float,
paradise domain spectacle,
where a fervor makes miracle,
novelty it shakes florescence
and the golden pictures are dressed in hope.
Let the one whom age makes dizzy,
bending to earth forehead wrinkled,
such is seeing of world’s circle
as with dull eyes he draws busy.
The youth! You beyond the measure
fly, and with an eye of the sun
of people’s multitudes treasure,
permeate, from end to the end – run.
Look down – where the eternal fog endarkens,
area of indolence flooded by depths.
That’s Earth!
Look beyond her perturbed water,
jumped amphibian into shelter.
Oneself sailor, a helm, a ship;
small amphibian, on a pleasure trip.
Once is floating, once is falling
neither wave clings to him nor he to the wave,
then as bubble he burst on a large boulder rolling.
no one knew his life, knew his fate:
these are egoists.
The youth! To you nectar of life,
for now sweat, when with others shared:
blue hearts are plied with joy in strife,
when together are bound by a golden thread.
Together young friends!
In happiness of all are all targets;
in oneness strong, minded to euphoria.
Together young friends!
And this one is blessed, who fell in duty,
with a fallen body in glory,
gave others a rung to victory.
Together young friends!
Even though the way is steep and slippery.
Weakness and rape are defending entry:
the rape by the rape is pressed,
to overcome weakness, in youth we shall learn!
As a child in a crib who the Hydra’s head did take,
that one as young will Centaurs’ suffocate,
from hell he will pull out offerings,
to heaven he will go for his sufferings.
Reach there, where eyesight won’t reach;
brake, what mind won’t brake.
Youth! Eagle’s might is your flight,
as a thunder is your arm.
Hey! Shoulder to shoulder! With the people’s chains.
let us shoot our thoughts in one fire,
and in one fire, souls’ desire.
Earthy circle’s, peace we shall gain.
Further solid from post of World!
Onto new we shall push you track
till you will dispose mildew bark.
You will resemble young life broad.
And as in countries of night and disarray,
calamity quarrel disturb,
you become one, God’s rule obey.
World of things stands on the verge tough,
roaring are winds, the depths are rough –
dark sky will be lit up by stars.
Yet in the countries of mankind deaf is night:
elements of will are yet at war;
here love is, as fire in word,
from discord will come, future bright:
youth will conceive it fraternal
and friendship will last eternal.
The icebergs are melting away,
bias obstructing is light span.
Morn of freedom with us will stay,
behind it reviving is sun.
Written 1820, Translated by Art Wielgus 2002
