Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/515

It is the sole unconquerable power
In this world's history.
Servility and pride are idle straws
A passing breath may sweep to nothingness.

Oh, learn to know thyself! Seek not to grow
Omnipotent, like Him who is in Heaven!
Ne'er give consent to bend thee like a brute,
Knowing no good save some fat pasture-land!
This side the tomb, ere breaks the distant dawn
Of Resurrection, be thou constant Will,
Immovable though worlds should crash around!
Be tireless Patience which, amid misfortune,
Can slowly rear from naught the edifice,
And which, unshaken by defeat, prepares
The future, certain, final victory!
Be thou Tranquillity amid the storm;
Order in chaos; Harmony in discord;
Amid the eternal combat of this life.
Be thou the eternal Beauty!

For cowards and for Pharisees, be Wrath
And Menace, or the Silence of contempt!
Angelic Inspiration be for men;
The Nourishment that nourishes the heart!
A Sister's Tear be for the suffering;
A Manly Voice, when long-tried courage reels!
For wandering exiles be their Home of Birth;
Be Hope for the despairing, Thunder to wake
The drowsy souls lulled in a corpse's sleep;
Always and everywhere be thou the Force
That reconciles,—the force of Self-devotion,
Stronger than death: and in the unending strife
Against the abyss of this mad world of Hate,
Be thou the Abyss of Love!
 
Ne'er cease to give
Thyself unto thy brethren under form
Of teaching and example. Still multiply
Thyself by living acts; and thus alone
Thou shalt outweigh thousands of other men!
Even in irons never cease to act!