This talk explores the improvisational music of Adam Mickiewicz in Dziady, or “Forefathers’ Eve”, comparing such unrehearsed songs of exile with Byron’s treatment of poet laureates in Don Juan (Bob Southey and “The Isles of Greece”). Where was spontaneous song possible; how did Mickiewicz, Pushkin, and Byron respond to the censorship of their publishers (John Murray, for example) and Czar Nicholas (to take another), who viewed them as Satanic poets or “Satan singing” (as Mickiewicz puts it in Dziady). Archibald Macleish lamented the lack of respect for poetry in the United States during the Mickiewciz centennial celebrations. What do such responses tell us about Mickiewicz’s reception before, during and after the Cold War?