Zygmunt Krasiński

Count Napoleon Stanisław Adam Ludwig Zygmunt Krasiński (19 February 1812 – 23 February 1859) was a Polish poet traditionally ranked with Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the trio of Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness in the period of Poland's political bondage. He was the most famous member of the aristocratic Krasiński family.

Zygmunt Krasiński in 1850

Quotes

The Undivine Comedy (1833)

• Alas! thou sufferest, too, although thy pangs
  Bring naught to birth, nothing create, nor serve!

• Not that I rise against thee, Poetry,
  Mother of Beauty, of ideal Life!
  But I must pity him condemned to dwell
  Within the limits of these whirling worlds
  In dying agonies, or yet to be,
  Doomed to sad memories, or prophecies,
  Perchance remorse, or vague
  resentiments,—
  Who gives himself to thee! for everywhere
  Thou ruinest wholly those who consecrate
  Themselves, with all they are, to thee alone,
  Who solely live the voices of thy glory!

• Painting the sensual with thy hues divine,—
  Thou turn'st away thy face, while scattering
  Perchance upon his brow some fading flowers,
  Of which he strives to twine a funeral crown,
  Spending his life to weave a wreath of death!