"Song of a Citizen" was first published in 1944 during the German occupation of Warsaw as one of a cycle of six poems making up the slim volume, Voices of Poor People. Like other poetry published in occupied Warsaw, it was produced in secret by printers who were willing to take the risk of being caught and punished by the Germans. Many copies circulated in the city. Milosz tells a story of a Polish boy during the occupation who found a suitcase in the family attic. It had been recovered by his railwayman father from a train, the occupants of which had all been sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. When the boy opened the suitcase, he found a copy of Voices of Poor People copied on a typewriter. No doubt "Song of a Citizen," as the voice of a Polish poet writing under the German...