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“A Task” by Czesław Miłosz 🇵🇱🇺🇸 (30 Jun 191114 Aug 2004)
Translated from the Polish
In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life
Only if I brought myself to make a public confession
Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:
We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons
But pure and generous words were forbidden
Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one
Considered himself as a lost man.