We were not told to shoot.
- I walked up to the cannon,
and looked at the field;
two hundred guns thundered.
Rus artillery ranks goes...
straight, long, far like a sea shores.
I saw their leader: he ran, waved his sword
and like a bird one wing of his army swinged;
Out from under the wing the squeezed infantry pours
in a long black column as lava of mud, Showered with sparkles of bayonets.
As vultures, black banners leads their regiments to death.
Against them points white, narrow, sharpened
like a rock that gores the sea,
Ordon's redoubt.
Where is the king, who sends those crowds to slaughter?
Is he sharing their courage, is he putting his life on the line?
No, he sits five hundred miles away on his capital...
Great king, the only ruler of the half of the world;
He frowned, - and thousand of kibits instantly goes;
He signed, - and thousand of mothers mourns their children;
He nodded, - and the knouts falls from from Niemno to Chiwa.
Oh mighty one, strong as the God himself, malignant as satan,
When your bronze scares the Turks,
When the paris legation licks your feets, -
Only Warsaw, alone is not afraid of your power,
Raises its hand on you and pulls the crown,
Crown od Casimirs, Chrobrys off your head,
For thou have stolen and covered it in blood
you Wasiliew's son!
But crumbles armies, for which the only God and faith is Tzar.
- Angry Tzar: If I die, I'll exhilarate Tzar.
Ura! Ura!
Look, near the redoubt, already into trenches
pounds on fascine their bodies;
Already blackens the white shafts' stockades.
Yet the redoubt in the middle, bright from guns fire,
Red over black like in the middle of anthouse thrown batterfly it flickers,
- Ants press on him,
- he died.
- Thats how redoubt died.
Where are the rifles?
- Ahh, today it worked more than on all inspections under princely rule;
I've guessed why its silent
- becouse i have seen not once handfull of ours fighting off Muscovites onslaught
When for hour two words has been yelled: fire, load;
When the smoke chokes the breaths and arms weakens;
And yet commands sounds, soldiers actions rage;
At the end without command they fulfills their duty
At the end with no thoughts, no feelings, oblivious, soldier like a firing mill loads, thunders, twirls
Weapon from eye to leg, from leg to eye:
Untill hand in the ammo pouch long and deeply
sought,
did not found
- soldier got pale,
Not found the ammunition, he was armless;
And he felt as the hot rifle burns;
He dropped it and fell;
- before they'll finish him off, he'll die.
Suddenly glare - smoke - a moment of silence - and like a roar of hundred thunders.
The air got full od dirt from the ground's cracks,
The cannons jumped and like if fired they rolled
- lighted fuses didnt got to their bearings. And smoke wafted
straight toward us, and covered us in dense cloud.
And there was no sight but the grenades flashes,
and slowly smoke vanished,
rain of dirt felt down.
I looked on the redoubt;
- shafts, stockades, cannons and handfull of ours, and clusters of enemies;
All like a dream disapeared.
- Only black deformed clump of Earth lies
- A peacemaking grave.
There both those who defended, - and those who invaded,
For the first time have concluded true and eternal peace.
There, for the first time, even if commanded
Muscovite's soul wont listen to tzar.
There are buried hundreds of bodies, names;
Where are the souls?
i dont know;
God had spoken word "become",
and he shall say "be gone".
When people's faith and freedom vanishes,
When the land gets poured with despotism and mad pride
as Ordon's redoubt got poured by Muscovites -
To punish tribe of victors poisoned with crimes,
God will blast the land,
as he blasted his redoubt.
Ordon's Redoubt - Adjutant Story by Adam Mickiewicz
