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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Sonnet: ‘The tricks of pleasing thou hast aye disdained’

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Sonnet: ‘The tricks of pleasing thou hast aye disdained’

By Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855)

Translation of Charles Harvey Genung

THE TRICKS of pleasing thou hast aye disdained;

Thy words are plain, and simple all thy ways;

Yet throngs, admiring, tremble ’neath thy gaze,

And in thy queenly presence stand enchained.

Amid the social babble unconstrained,

I heard men speak of women words of praise,

And with a smile each turned some honeyed phrase.

Thou cam’st,—and lo! a sacred silence reigned.

Thus when the dancers with each other vie,

And through the merry mazes whirling go,

Abruptly all is hushed: they wonder why,

And no one can the subtle reason show.

The poet speaks: “There glides an angel by!”

The guest all dimly feel, but few do know.