Act 1 — Scene I.

Goblins, Water Spirits.

Chorus of Goblins.

Sing on, thou weird old salamander,

In magic fiery mazes wander,

Thy burning song may hurt thyself,

But cannot warm one shivering elf;

’Twill disenchant thy mind deluded,

And yet our power is not illuded,

In baleful spells we keep thee bound,

And firmly are the fetters wound.

12List to that magic spell, and say

If thou canst exorcise its sway,

But for a time,

By foamy froth of hollow hope,

Or reminiscences raised up

Of Poland’s prime!—

Hither, ye demons dire,

Of rapine, and murder, and spite,

Perjury, falsehood, conspire,

All in one compact unite;

Reach out the hand,

A chosen band

Of mortals shall greet you,

And lovingly treat you,

As brothers in arms;

Who sneer down as vain

Each national claim,

And of right

Make light,

Though pray’d for in common humanity’s name.

What, tremble ye, cowards! delay not, draw near,

If God be a fiction, what is there to fear?

13By your gorgon-like aspect, congeal’d into stone,

All helpless and heedless the nations look on.

In the name of all things holy

Desecration shall be bless’d,

Sin itself be canonized,

At the triple crown’s behest.

Hither spirits, powers of evil!

Soon your mighty chief, the Devil,

Gives that watchword to your ring

Which no minstrel can out-sing.

Write then, weak poet, on the changing sand

Which skirts the boasted river of thy land;

Write thy dull song of Poland’s daughters rare,

And all the heroic virtues of the fair;

Oblivion’s waves shall soon engulf thy rhymes,

Siberia’s snows be wafted o’er the lines,

Ashes of Polish bones that moulder’d down,

Where Spielberg and Spandau portentous frown,

Shall closely hide them with a spectral pall,

And from the shuddering eye shall cover all.

Sing, if thou wilt, of patriotic queens,

Of sacrifice of self, and all such themes;

14Foreign oppressors soon, short-sighted fool,

Triumphantly shall reign with iron rule,

Though fearing, hating you with deadly hate,

And kindling you to hatred all too late:

When ye shall see the Vistula, beside

Her hundred sisters, with your life-blood dyed,

And when the Polish Wawel’s cannon shows

A front ’gainst Poland, not ’gainst Poland’s foes.

Then to your poets, into exile driven

Will time and leisure bounteously be given

To groan in cadence drear a worthless song,

To wail those foreign hills and groves among;

There, where a happy ignorance of grief

Forbids e’en sympathy to lend relief,

Where echo only answers with a groan,

The language and the woe alike unknown.

Chorus of Water Spirits from the Vistula.

Away, ye dark spirits, in vain are your cries,

Who mock at misfortune, and virtue despise.

Ye symbols of hard and material prose,

Of poetry living or rhyming the foes;

15Away! for the poet’s vocation sublime

To you is a problem unsolved for all time;

Heaven’s bolts lifeless fall when they reach the morass,

And thus the ideal with minds of your class.

Look up then, and know that your reign’s at an end;

From the Wawel see Wanda’s fair maidens descend;

At the aspect of innocence, beauty and love,

Quail, quail, ye dark demons! and shrinking remove;

Haste ere your weak vision be quench’d by the light,

Ye birds of ill-omen, ye owls of the night!

[Exeunt.