"I sensed Budberg was right and I rebelled.
So I won't have power, won't save the world?
Fame will pass me by, no tiara, no crown?"
In "The Magic Mountain," Milosz rebukes his friend for doubting his authorial authority. He is offended that someone so close to him could miss his genius -- the ultimate insult. He demonstrates a certain insecurity and instability of ego in this retort, reminiscent of an ill-resting king who's suspicious of all his inferiors because he's always suspecting treason.
"Until it passed. What passed? Life.
Now I am no ashamed of my defeat.
One murky island with its barking seals
Or a parched desert is enough
To make us say: yes, oui, si."
Published just a few years before he won the Nobel Prize, Milosz confesses in this poem that he believes he's a failure. He hasn't lived up to whatever lofty aspirations he had set for himself in his youth, but here in the Bay he can't help but prefer this peacefulness. It seems a fitting place for a washed-up poet to make his tomb. But Milosz is far from through with his career at this point in time, little though he knows.
"Desire will not save the morality of God."
Writing about his own experience of life, Milosz concludes pessimistically that God is an evil god. He cannot reconcile the evil he sees in the world with man's choice. Instead it must be blamed upon a God who granted power to those unfit to wield it and then punished them for their ignorance. These are the words of a very angry man.
"And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps Do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, As long as the bumblebee visits a rose, As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening now."
Milosz has seen events which would make anyone cringe in horror, the least of which is warfare. He recognizes the general ignorance of the public. So long as things appear normal, they will be taken for granted. Thus even when the end of the world is at hand, the people will refuse to acknowledge it and continue about their day as normal.
