Beyond the artist's ego lies a heavy, dark, yet real world. One must not cease to believe that we can articulate this world and do it justice. Zbigniew Herbert never understood poetry as mere word art. From the bare poetry of the sparse verses in his debut collection "Lichtsaite" (1956) to the account of a besieged city (1983), he speaks of the fragility of humanity and the overwhelming power of a violent history. Yet it is not lamentation that sets the tone, for Herbert possesses a multitude of tones and forms, ranging from ironic epigrams to narrative poems. Among the figures that appear in his role poems is "Mr. Cogito," a relative of Valéry's "Monsieur Teste," who masters the art of merging pain and reason. Hermes, dog, and star.