From the other side of the world,
From a little island cradled in the giant sea bosom,
From a little land with no history,
(Making its own history, slowly and clumsily
Piecing together this and that, finding the pattern, solving the problem,
Like a child with a box of bricks),
I, a woman, with the taint of the pioneer in my blood,
Full of a youthful strength that wars with itself and is lawless,
I sing your praises, magnificent warrior; I proclaim your triumphant battle.
My people have had nought to contend with;
They have worked in the broad light of day and handled the clay with rude fingers
Life—a thing of blood and muscle; Death—a shovelling underground of waste material.
What would they know of ghosts and unseen presences,
Of shadows that blot out reality, of darkness that stultifies morn?
Fine and sweet the water that runs from their mountains;
How could they know of poisonous weed, of rotted and clogging tendrils?
And the tapestry woven from dreams of your tragic childhood
They would tear in their stupid hands,
The sad, pale light of your soul blow out with their childish laughter.
But the dead—the old—Oh Master, we belong to you there;
Oh Master, there we are children and awed by the strength of a giant;
How alive you leapt into the grave and wrestled with Death
And found in the veins of Death the red blood flowing
And raised Death up in your arms and showed him to all the people.
Yours a more personal labor than the Nazarene's miracles,
Yours a more forceful encounter than the Nazarene's gentle commands.
Stanislaw Wyspianski—Oh man with the name of a fighter,
Across these thousands of sea-shattered miles we cry and proclaim you;
We say ‘He is lying in Poland, and Poland thinks he is dead;
But he gave the denial to Death—he is lying there, wakeful;
The blood in his giant heart pulls red through his veins.’