The article aims at describing the forms of the theme of the Vistula River in Czesław Miłosz’s poetry. For this purpose, it transpires to be necessary to take account of Miłosz’s biographical conditions and consider the attitude of the writer towards the poetic tradition of the theme. Above all, the article is an attempt to reflect on its symbolic meanings and metaphysical functions. Reading poems or fragments of poems dedicated to the Vistula River (from the 40s and 50s) enables the development of the following thesis: the presence of this theme serves as means to identify the specificity of Polish history and diagnose the essence of Polish historical fate.