A Polish HymnAuthor(s): Monica GardnerSource: The Slavonic Review, Vol. 4, No. 12 (Mar., 1926), pp. 693-694Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4202007 .

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POETRY. 693

A POLISH HYMN

Translated by MONICA GARDNEr<. [Translator's Note.-These lines were written in i86o by the young poe t

MIECZYSLAW ROMANOWSKI, who has been called the Polish Keirner. He dedicated both his poetical gifts and his life to Poland, and died a heroic death on one of the battlefields of the Polish Rising of I863. His poems have always been popular in Poland, and durintg the Great War were sung by the Polish prisoners in Siberia.]

LET us be true, our Poland, unto thee As long as we draw breath.

Let us stand firm when on thy brow we see The martyr's thorny wreath.

Whether we be upraised or mocked by fate, Our love the conqueror of our slavery, To thee our life, our blood, our strength we dedicate,

And fame in death.

God gave us birth here on this soil of thine; Here, painful life.

Here, at our death, our tired heads shall recline On couch or field of strife.

Here do our brothers at the tyrant's hand In death and torment lay their young lives down; Eternal witness that our Poland, our loved land, Now drowned in tears and blood, God chose to be our own.

Here, glory doth our dead immortalise, Here, their bones sleep.

Here, holy freedom to our sight shall rise After the days we weep.

Sawa, Pulaski, Rejtan here were born,' And the great Hetman2 who the sukman donned. Here shall our sorrows end, our chains be torn. Here shall we dwell, linked in love's sweet bond.

Oh, holy Poland! In thy life-blood red Our hands we steep.

No heart while thou art lying dead Can cease to weep.

Sawa and Pulaski are famous for the part they played in the Confederation of Bar, Rejtan for his resistance to the first partition of Poland.

2 Ko?ciuslco. After the famouis peasant charge at the Battle of Ractawice, Kosciusko in the presence of all his army put on the sul0nan--the long coat of the peasants--which lie hencefoith always w ore.

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694 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

Man's soul is cold, sharp is the foeman's sword, But filial hands shall raise thee from thy shame; And praised for ever be our God and Lord, While hell and tyrants tremble at thy name.

Let us be watching, soldiers at our post, For none can know

When, to call Poland from the nations lost, The trumpet blast shall blow.

Then as the lightning will we burn and rend; Hope and our swords leading to victory, Or, like our fathers, to life's noble end: Thy sons, oh, Poland, still, whether we live or (lie

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