forgiven for his sins. In the third section of the
poem, Milosz makes reference again to the apoc-
alypse, commenting on what might exist when
the world no longer does. Once again, he speaks
of the judgment he will face at the end of his life,
observing that we are all of us alone at this dark
trial. The fifth section similarly meditates on
death, what might come after, and the purpose
of our lives. Milosz, in the sixth section of the
poem, expresses his fears that his questioning of
faith, and his explorations into philosophies that
conflict with his church’s teachings have perhaps
poisoned him. He speaks of these inquiries in
terms of sin and the resultant guilt. He wonders
whether purification before the final judgment is
possible. The final stanza of the final section
closes the poem with the same grim tones that
opened it, with references to the apocalypse. The
poet wonders when it might come; he knows that
it is inevitable and that a silence that cannot be
imagined will follow. While Milosz speaks of the
restoration of all to God’s glory, he ends the
poem with the comment that his final judgment
will stem from his despair at not being able to
comprehend the possibility of this restoration.
Style
Verse and Prose
Milosz’s approach to ‘‘From the Rising of the
Sun’’ is extremely complex in terms of structure
and voice. In combining verse and prose, Milosz
constructs a work whose narrative often feels
jarring and disjointed. The Milosz scholars Leo-
nard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, inThe Poet’s
Work: An Introduction to Czeslaw Milosz, com-
ment on this poem’s structure, stating that ‘‘the
effort needed to follow the movement of the
poem from section to section is staggering.’’ In
fact, the disorienting effect of the stops and starts
in verse, with the interruptions by long sections
of prose, is challenging but underscores the pain-
ful themes of the poem, which focus on alien-
ation and judgment, fear and longing. The prose
is sometimes used as a mini-lecture, conveying
instruction by Milosz crafted to help the reader
understand the import of the verse, as when the
poet discourses on the origins of the word
‘‘lauda,’’ which is the title of the poem’s third
section. The prose supports the verse in other
ways as well. In a prose portion of the poem’s
third section Milosz incorporates medieval
family histories, along with a household inven-
tory of a magistrate. The exhaustively detailed
tracts of prose highlight the poet’s longing for
what has passed, for a sense of family and his-
tory that has been left behind. The prose sections
are often attempts to order the feelings he pos-
sesses regarding his isolation from his native
land, feelings he explores in a more lyrical man-
ner in the verse sections of the poem.Multiple Voices
In addition to the complex structure, ‘‘From the
Rising of the Sun’’ also makes use of different
points of view, giving the effect that there are a
variety of speakers in the poem. Milosz at times
speaks in the third person, at other times in the
first, and some sections in the poem are structured
in a question-and-answer format, although it
appears as though Milosz is doing both the asking
and the answering. He describes scenes as though
recalling things that happened to him and then
informs the reader that such things never actually
happened to him; he thus provides voices from
the past that never existed. At the same time, he
introduces us to other individuals whom he
recalls vividly, who he affirms are real, and in
telling their stories, he gives them a voice. By
occupying these various identities, by voicing his
thoughts and feelings through a multiplicity of
individuals both real and imagined, Milosz
again underscores his yearning for connection as
well as his isolation.Historical Context
Lithuania and Poland in the 1940s
Although ‘‘From the Rising of the Sun’’ was not
written during the 1940s, nor is it specifically
about that time period in Lithuanian and Polish
history, lengthy sections of the poem contain
Milosz’s reminiscences about the home he left.
The turmoil in his homeland, which Milosz had
escaped in the mid-1940s, would haunt his prose
and poetry for years to come; the longing Milosz
expresses, generated at least in part by his sepa-
ration from the land of his birth, textures much
of the poem. Warfare in the regions of Lithuania
and Poland from before World War I, in the
years between World Wars I and II, and during
World War II resulted in a shifting in borders.
The land Milosz called home, the Vilnius region
in what is now Lithuania, was alternatelyFrom the Rising of the Sun