Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/135

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THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
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toil, shook off its shroud, and sprang from its inaction. And is it known what was the signal of this sudden Polish life? It was a funeral mass celebrated upon the same day in all the churches of the country for the repose of the souls of three poets: Mickiewicz; the author of the "Psalms"; and Slowacki.

A pious thought of love and concord thus strove to reunite before God, and in the general mourning of their fellow-men, the two great adversaries who had been for a long time friends, placing above them both the great master,—"the immortal Waïdelote."

Soon after came the day in which the people of Warsaw rose; rose without arms, bearing only the cross and Polish flag in their hands: "They gave no death, but they received it;" and when the Ruler, frightened at an attitude so new, demanded what they wanted, they replied: "Our Country."

Then must the great spirit of the singer of "Resurrecturis" have leaped for joy. The Ideal he had dreamed was now Reality; and the Poetry which had remained so long anonymous was now signed by the name of an entire People.

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