The Farm, from Pan Tadeusz - Adam Mickiewicz

O Lithuania, my native land, 

you are like health--so valued when lost 

beyond recovery; let these words now stand

restoring you, redeeming exile's cost.

Holy Virgin, defender of the Shrine

at Czestochowa, who illuminates 

the Ostra Gate in Vilno, whose sign 

revealed as one of her protectorates

the walled Novogrodek--who saved me once

with her miraculous glow. My tearful mother

entrusted me (it was her only chance,

I was near death) so when there was no other

cure, she helped to open up my eyes,

and once my lids were raised, though weak, I made

a pilgrimage to offer thanks and praise.

This memory of resurrection has stayed

alive in me since childhood; it makes

me hope a homesick exile might return

to wooded hills, green meadows, and the lakes

spread round the River Nieman--that I'd be borne

back to that womb of gilded wheat and rye

turned silver, to the amber mustard row,

buckwheat snow, and clover, burning like a shy

girl's blush--to strips of turf, ribbons that show

boundaries with green. All this I see

so clearly, down to each blossoming pear tree.

A larchwood manor stood upon the banks

of a stream, dividing groves of birch, its stone

foundation propping up the solid ranks

of oak beams and whitewashed walls, which shone

in stark relief against the darker green

of poplars all around. A barn attested

to abundant stores of grain, unseen,

and more in fields waiting to be harvested.

Black earth, gridded from countless plows,

fallow land, flowerbed, and garden--

everything about the farmstead shows

its owner's lot is prosperous. Even

stranger would face, like guest, a welcome sight,

a gate, open by day, unlatched at night.

---

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (1798 –  1855) Poland

Translated by Leonard Kress

Source: Pan Tadeusz, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A History of the Nobility in the Years 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse, Adam Mickiewicz - translated by Leonard Kress, HarrowGate Press, 2006 (Book 1: The Farm)