Zbigniew Herbert

Zbigniew Herbert (29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, playwright and essayist.

• And if the City falls and one survives
  he shall carry the City within on the roads of exile
  he shall be the City
  • Report from the Besieged City

• Jeśli tematem sztuki
  będzie dzbanek rozbity
  mała rozbita dusza
  z wielkim żalem nad sobą
  
  to co po nas zostanie
  będzie jak płacz kochanków
  w małym brudnym hotelu
  kiedy świtają tapety
  • if the subject of art
    will be a broken jug
    a small broken soul
    with a great self-pity
    
    what will remain of us
    will be like tears of lovers
    in a small dirty hotel
    when wallpapers dawn
  • Why the Classics

• Go where the others have gone, to the tenebrous limit
  for the golden fleece of void, your ultimate prize
  go upright among those who are on their knees
  among those turning their backs on and those fallen to dust.
  • Message of Mr. Cogito

• And do not forgive indeed it is beyond your power
  to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn
  • Message of Mr. Cogito

• You survived not to live on
  your time is short, you have to give a proof of truth
  • Message of Mr. Cogito

• Go for it is the only way to be accepted to the circle of cold skulls
  the circle of your forefathers: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
  defenders of the kingdom of no frontiers and of the city of ashes
  
  Be faithful Go
  • Message of Mr. Cogito

• I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience.
  • Quoted by Michael Hamburger, in his book, The Truth of Poetry

• Now that we're alone we can talk prince man to man
  though you lie on the stairs and see no more than a dead ant.
  • Elegy of Fortinbras

• Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project
  and a decree on prostitutes and beggar
  I must also elaborate a better system of prisons
  since as you justly said Denmark is a prison
  I go to my affairs This night is born
  a star named Hamlet
  We shall never meet
  what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy
  It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos
  and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince.
  • Elegy of Fortinbras

• His poems, even in English, seem to me finer than anything currently being written by any English or American poet.
  • A.Alvarez, The New York Review of Books (18 July 1985)

• Biography at Culture.pl