The Collected Poems

1956–1998

Zbigniew Herbert

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN:
  9780062046154
• Print ISBN:
  9780060783952

"Herbert's work in twentieth-century letters . . . rivals that of W. H. Auden or Elizabeth Bishop in its originality, imaginative breadth and humane vigilance." — The Washington Post
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
This outstanding new translation brings a uniformity of voice to Zbigniew Herbert's entire poetic output, from his first book of poems,  String of Light, in 1956, to his final volume, previously unpublished in English,  Epilogue of the Storm.  The Collected Poems: 1956-1998, as Joseph Brodsky said of Herbert's  Selected Poems, is "bound for a much longer haul than any of us can anticipate." He continues, "For Zbigniew Herbert's poetry adds to the biography of civilization the sensibility of a man not defeated by the century that has been most thorough, most effective in dehumanization of the species. Herbert's irony, his austere reserve and his compassion, the lucidity of his lyricism, the intensity of his sentiment toward classical antiquity, are not just trappings of a modern poet, but the necessary armor—in his case well-tempered and shining indeed—for man not to be crushed by the onslaught of reality. By offering to his readers neither aesthetic nor ethical discount, this poet, in fact, saves them from that poverty which every form of human evil finds so congenial. As long as the species exists, this book will be timely."
"Now, nearly ten years after his death, Herbert's voice is gathered, uncensored and unimaginably strong, in one dynamic volume." — San Francisco Chronicle
"English readers have cause for celebration." — The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Finally, the work of this powerful master of twentieth-century literature is all in one place." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

HERMES, DOG AND STAR
1957

BAPTISM

Veterans of forty-day floods
tried by the sundering of the heavens
they who saw mountains die
and mice find salvation
now sit out on the pier
and watch the waving grain
beautiful as a waterfall
—it was a fortunate notion
to entrust hope to the birds
this made their faith strong
as a pigeon house

survivors of houses on fire
where men burn like feathers
peer into the insides of skulls
into mindless scrolls of pink anatomy
they who know a body’s weight
say
the criminal cat and astronomer
well deserved to lie motionless
a shallow plain levels
the evil and the good

finally we with rainbow clods of earth under our lids
who discern upward motion and downward motion
sacrifices sent up
eyelids cast down
we say
they are both right
those baptized by water
those baptized by fire
will be reconciled by nothingness
or mercy
and only we against whom
the Church fathers would have written pamphlets
contra académicos
only we will meet with a terrible fate
flames and lamentation
for having received a baptism of earth
we were too valiant in our uncertainty

AT THE GATE OF THE VALLEY

After the rain of stars
on the meadow of ashes
they all have gathered under the guard of angels

from a hill that survived
the eye embraces
the whole lowing two-legged herd

in truth they are not many
counting even those who will come
from chronicles fables and the lives of the saints

but enough of these remarks
let us lift our eyes
to the throat of the valley
from which comes a shout

after a loud whisper of explosion
after a loud whisper of silence
this voice resounds like a spring of living water
it is we are told
a cry of mothers from whom children are taken
since as it turns out
we shall be saved each one alone

the guardian angels are unmoved
and let us grant they have a hard job

she begs
—hide me in your eye
in the palm of your hand in your arms
we have always been together
you can’t abandon me
now when I am dead and need tenderness
a higher ranking angel
with a smile explains the misunderstanding

an old woman carries
the corpse of a canary
(all the animals died a little earlier)
he was so nice—she says weeping
he understood everything
and when I said to him—
her voice is lost in the general noise

even a lumberjack
whom one would never suspect of such things
an old bowed fellow
catches to his breast an axe
—all my life she was mine
she will be mine here too
she nourished me there
she will nourish me here
nobody has the right
—he says—
I won’t give her up

those who as it seems
have obeyed the orders without pain
go lowering their heads as a sign of consent
but in their clenched fists they hide
fragments of letters ribbons clippings of hair
and photographs
which they naively think
won’t be taken from them

so they appear
a moment before
the final division
of those gnashing their teeth
from those singing psalms

TOUCH

The double truth of all the senses—

a convoy of images passes the eye
they are like a vision under water
and between the black and white
filters the uncertainty of colors
it wavers slightly in the pure air
our seeing is a mirror or a sieve—
a wavering wisdom of moist eyes
seeps through it drop by drop

under sweetness bitterness dozes
so the deranged tongue cries out

in hearing’s shell where an ocean
is like a ball of yarn where a white
shadow’s silence attracts a stone
just a muddle of stars and leaves

from earth’s center a tangled smell
a world between smell and surprise

and touch in its certainty comes
to return to things their stillness
over the ear’s lie the eye’s chaos
there grows a dam of ten fingers
a hard and faithless mistrust lays
its fingers in the world’s wound
to divide thing from appearance

O you most true you alone
can give utterance to love
you alone offer consolation
we are both blind and deaf

—touch grows on the edge of truth

I WOULD LIKE TO DESCRIBE

I would like to describe the simplest emotion
joy or sadness
but not as others do
reaching for shafts of rain or sun

I would like to describe a light
which is being born in me
but I know it does not resemble
any star
for it is not so bright
not so pure
and is uncertain

I would like to describe courage
without dragging behind me a dusty lion
and also anxiety
without shaking a glass full of water

to put it another way
I would give all metaphors
in return for one word
drawn out of my breast like a rib
for one word
contained within the boundaries
of my skin

but apparently this is not possible

and just to say—I love
I run around like mad
picking up handfuls of birds
and my tenderness
which after all is not made of water
asks the water for a face
and anger
different from fire
borrows from it
a loquacious tongue

so is blurred
so is blurred
in me
what white-haired gentlemen
separated once and for all
and said
this is the subject
and this is the object

we fall asleep
with one hand under our head
and with the other in a mound of planets

our feet abandon us
and taste the earth
with their tiny roots
which next morning
we tear out painfully

VOICE

I walk on the sea-shore
to catch that voice
between the breaking of one wave
and another

but there is no voice
only the senile garrulity of water
salty nothing
a white bird’s wing
stuck dry to a stone

I walk to the forest
where persists the continuous
hum of an immense hour-glass
sifting leaves into humus
humus into leaves
powerful jaws of insects
consume the silence of the earth

I walk into the fields
green and yellow sheets
fastened with pins of insect beings
sing at every touch of the wind

where is that voice
it should speak up
when for a moment there is a pause
in the unrelenting monologue of the earth

nothing but whispers
clappings explosions

I come home
and my experience takes on
the shape of an alternative
either the world is dumb
or I am deaf

but perhaps
we are both
doomed to our afflictions

therefore we must
arm in arm
go blindly on
toward new horizons
toward contracted throats
from which rises
an unintelligible gurgle

AKHENATON

INSCRIPTION

Akhenaton’s soul, in the shape of a bird, alighted on the forehead’s verge, to rest before its long journey. But instead of looking off to the horizon, it peered into the dead man’s face. That face was as a mirror for the gods.

ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION

Why must I make my way
—the soul thought—
through tangled questions
toward barking divinities

why go down dark corridors
across rough-skinned palms
toward scales snakes beetles

I will stay here
I will learn the secret of ears
folded back against the head
flat as dogs

I will hold the boats
of the sweet eyelids
lest they float away
to sunken temples

I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• CONTENTS
• TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
• INTRODUCTION by ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI
• CHORD OF LIGHT 1956
• HERMES, DOG AND STAR 1957
• STUDY OF THE OBJECT 1961
• INSCRIPTION 1969
• MR COGITO 1974
• REPORT FROM A BESIEGED CITY 1983
• ELEGY FOR THE DEPARTURE 1990
• ROVIGO 1992
• EPILOGUE TO A STORM 1998
• ZBIGNIEW HERBERT: A CHRONOLOGY
• INDEX
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• OTHER BOOKS BY ZBIGNIEW HERBERT
• Copyright
• About the Publisher
• NOTES