and only we against whom
the Church Fathers would have written pamphlets
contra academicos
only we will meet with a terrible fate
flames and lamentation
for having received a baptism of earth
we were too valiant in our uncertainty
– Zbigniew Herbert, “Baptism”, 1957
Z. Herbert, The Collected Poems: 1956-1998, ed. and tr. A. Valles (New York: Ecco, 2007), 60
D. L. Dusenbury 