IS POLAND LOST ?

epic poem, Lord Thaddeus, one of the immortal
works of world literature. But that was the last
creation of his genius, though he was then still in
the thirties. The King of Poets who had kindled
the fires of patriotism and love of liberty in millions
of hearts, was destitute. Sometimes he and his
family were in want of bread for days. It was
only after years of utter misery that Mickiewicz,
a former student of Grodeck, the German philo-
logist who had lived in Poland, was appointed to
a professorate at the newly founded Academy of
Lausanne. The Swiss treated him with friendli-
ness and reverence, but Mickiewicz could not
resist a call from Paris to accept the chair for Slav
Literature at the College de France. He hesitated
but little before he returned to the * capital of the
Slav world', where he later published his Lectures
on Slav Literature, which was not only a great
work on philosophical history but also an act of
tremendous consequence for the cause which
filled his life.

In 1848 the poet went to Italy in order to
organize a Legion for the Polish war of independ-
ence, for even amid his professorial activities he
had remained a soldier of the forgotten Army of
Freedom, though he fought with a stronger weapon
than the sword. In Italy he edited a paper and
entered into the political struggles of the day.
Then came the Crimean War, in which England
and France fought on the side of Turkey against
the mortal enemy of Polish freedom. The poet
felt that the hour had struck and, forming a Polish
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