Lament V - Jan Kochanowski

Just as a little olive offshoot grows
Beneath its orchard elders’ shady rows,
No budding leaf as yet, no branching limb,
Only a rod uprising, virgin-slim —

A Little Bit About the Soul - Wislawa Szymborska

A soul is something we have every now and then.
Nobody has one all the time
or forever.

It kindles all my soul - Casimir of Poland

It kindles all my soul, 

       My country's loveliness! These starry choirs
       That watch around the pole, 

Lament VI - Jan Kochanowski

Dear little Slavic Sappho, we had thought,
Hearing thy songs so sweetly, deftly wrought,
That thou shouldst have an heritage one day
Beyond thy father’s lands: his lute to play.

Hour of sadness - Israel Emiot

Hour of sadness
rain all the time
everything close
and full of goodbyes;

A list of questions to measure love - Katrina Dybzynska

I

I know you wash the clothes not by the color

but by the type of fabric. 

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.

Song of the Brightness of Water - Karol Wojtyla

From the depth—I came only to draw water

in a jug—so long ago, this brightness

still clings to my eyes—the perception I found,

and so much empty space, my own,

reflected in the well.

October Sky - Tadeusz Borowski

October was beautiful. As if it were yesterday I remember

the strangely clear, strangely deep sky

shimmering in the noon heat as a leaf shimmers in the wind,

empty and unreachable. I am oddly melancholy

telling you about this, for what do words mean?

Take Your Gun - Jacob Bronowski

Man, take your gun: and put to shame

earthquake and plague, the acts of God.

You maim the crazy and the lame.

Lament IV - Jan Kochanowski

Thou hast constrained mine eyes, unholy Death,

To watch my dear child breathe her dying breath:

To watch thee shake the fruit unripe and clinging

While fear and grief her parents' hearts were wringing.

Lament III - Jan Kochanowski

So, thou hast scorned me, my delight and heir;

Thy father's halls, then, were not broad and fair

Enough for thee to dwell here longer, sweet.

Beyond the Helplessness Principle - Kacper Bartczak

Something will occur and at once it will be found

among other occurrences I know

that the heaviest dreams are only an illusion

Eastward, the Sun - Adam Mickiewicz

Eastward, the sun arises clad in gold,

Westward, the waning moonbeam disappears;

Hope and Faith - Isaac Leib Perez

Hope! Not distant is the Springtime,

  Butterflies will soon be winging—

In new nests the merry songsters

  Their new songs will soon be singing.

In Verona - Cyprian Kamil Norwid

1

O’er the abodes o’the Capulets and Montagues,

The gentle eye there in the spacious skies now views,

By thunder whipped and washed with rain —

Development - Katrina Dybzynska

Our child would have uneven

teeth and a birthmark on the right

hip. The rest would be a fight

for domination: eyes that change

A path to the Sea - Krzeslawa Skrzypczynska

Gadgets

I love those our gadgets

color ones,

although alike;

What our dead can do - Zbigniew Herbert

Jan came this morning

—I dreamt of my father

he says

On Health - Jan Kochanowski

My good and noble health,

Thou matter’st more then wealth.

None know’th thy worth until

Thou fad’st, and we fall ill.