Read Online The Collected Poems by Zbigniew Herbert - Free Book Online Page A

of the men inside
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DRUM SONG
    Pastoral flutes are departed
the gold of Sunday trumpets
the vernal echoes the horns
and the strings are departed—
    only the drum remains
and the drum plays on
a festive march a funeral march
primitive feelings keep the pace
on legs straight as rods
the drummer boy plays
thought is one and one the word
as a drum summons a sheer abyss
    we carry gleanings or a tombstone
we take wise orders from the drum
our step pounding the paving’s skin
a proud step that will turn the world
into one procession and one slogan
    at last all mankind is going
at last all are fallen into step
the calfskin and two sticks
razed steeples and solitude
and silence was trampled too
death en masse is not so bad
    dust mounts above the march
the acquiescent sea will part
we will go down to the depths
to empty hell and up on high
make sure no heaven exists
then freed from its trepidation
all the march will turn to sand
carried by the mocking wind
so the ultimate echo will fade
of earth’s disobedient mold
leaving only a drum a drum
the dictator of gutted music
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A LITTLE BIRD
    O tree spreading like the tree of Genesis
intended for us birds to be a green house
under the revolving spheres’ bated breath
amid sand and clay amid clay and sand
in the midst of deserts which kindly winds
bring nothing but a waterless rain of ash
    where to live but in the one and only tree
where you hear thick drops of falling bees
and the rustling of a pitcher full of leaves
    I a little bird know I know my place
bound to a branch I’d like to be a leaf
that most diminutive quivering leaf
    â€”for the wise serpent who lives in the tree
who twines round the tree and rules the tree
says that he who leaves the tree will perish
from thirst and hunger from fear of himself
even if he prettily calls his flight freedom
    truly I say unto you says the wise serpent
if you won’t be as obedient as the leaves
as humble weak at a wind’s beck and call
you will perish and leave no trace behind—
    I a little bird know my worth I do
I’m not like that cricket under a stone
free and easy he who has just a husk
soon to be left as an empty monument
but we have history and ruins of nests
and houses lined ingeniously with fluff
and a school of singing which we trust
to outlast mute and tone-deaf swarms of stars—a bird’s death leaves a hole in the sky
strewing gray dust on the green of earth—
    â€¢ • •
    the sacrifice of wings hurts at first
but song may be made of the hurt
later you come to like not moving
and fear dictates words to the song
    fending off the verdict with a song
governed by an instinct of survival
deep down we hide a rebel spark
while praising the sweet use of force
    from a tight throat lengthy odes
this will surely burst our throats
    and burst our hearts when eyes
unmoving come too close to us
    you there reading under the tree
who are a bird among humanity
    here is a pen—if you can
write an elegy on my death
    a pen preserve in it the shades
of terror and love and despair
with it you may write an epic
on a bird’s fate in a harsh age
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PARABLE OF THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉS
    It was in the year twenty
or perhaps twenty-one
the Russian émigrés
came to us
    tall blond people
with visionary eyes
and women like a dream
    when they crossed the market-place
we used to say—migratory birds
    they used to attend the
soirees
of the gentry
everyone would whisper—look what pearls
    but when the lights of the ball were extinguished
helpless people remained
    the gray newspapers were continuously silent
only solitaire showed pity
    the guitars beyond the windows would cease playing
and even dark eyes faded
    in the evening a samovar with a whistle
would carry them back to their family railway-stations
    after a couple of years
only three of them were spoken about
the one who went mad
the one who hanged himself
she to whom men used to come
    the rest lived out of the way
slowly