^ Sow ye the love of your native land and the spirit of
self-sacrifice, and be certain that the Commonwealth will
grow again, mighty and fiur. • • . Each one of you " — and
here we have one of the most fundamental principles of the
whole of our poet's own life and of his apostolate to his nation
— ^^Each one of you hath within his soul the seed of
the nation's future laws and the measures of her future
boundaries.*'

137



ADAM MICKIEWICZ

Begging his countrymen not to dispute^ as they
were given to do, as to the future government of freed
Poland or the details of her boundaries :

*^ As much as you make your own souls greater and better^
so much will ye better your laws and enlarge your boundaries."

^^ Ye are in your pilgrimage in a strange land like God's
people in the desert : "

and he bids the Poles to refrain from lamentations and
from doubt, so that the days of their wandering may
not be prolonged. For the Israelites who doubted
died in the desert without beholding the Promised
Land, and the same fate shall befall the exiled children
of Poland who murmur and despair even in the secret
of their heart.
