Shevchenko’s poems

My tomb upon a grave mound high

Amid the spreading plain,

So that the fields, the boundless steppes,

The Dnieper’s plunging shore

My eyes could see, my ears could hear

The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears

Into the deep blue sea

The blood of foes… then will I leave

These hills and fertile fields —

I’ll leave them all and fly away

To the abode of God,

And then I’ll pray… But till that day

I nothing know of God.

Oh bury me, then rise ye up

And break your heavy chains

And water with the tyrants’ blood

The freedom you have gained.

And in the great new family,

The family of the free,

With softly spoken, kindly word

Remember also meeside the house, the cherry’s flowering,

Above the trees the May bugs hum,

The ploughmen from the furrows come,

The girls all wander homeward, singing,

And mothers wait the meal for them.

Beside the house, a family supper,

Above, the evening star appears,

The daughter serves the dishes here ;

It’s useless to advise her, mother,

The nightingale won’t let her hear.

Beside the house, the mother lulls

The little children for the night,

Then she, too, settles at their side.

And all is still… Only the girls

And nightingales disturb the quiet.

[May, 1847

St. Petersburg. In the Fortress

I care not if ’tis in Ukraine

Or far from her I live and die ;

I care not if ‘neath alien sky

Remembered or forgotten by

Her and her people I remain.

In slavery, midst alien folk

Grow up I did, and ‘neath the yoke

Of slavery I’ll die unmourned,

Far from the land that is our own

And yet in not — I’ll leave fore’er

Our sweet Ukraine, and no trace there

Of me, an exile, will be left.

And father will not say to son :

” In prayer our voices let us lift

For one who suffered martyrdom

For our Ukraine… ” I care not if

They ever pray for me or not,

To me this matters little… But

If Evil lulls my hapless land

To sleep by ruse and cunning, and

She wakes in flames and robbed — in such,

As fear I, is to be her lot —

To me this matters… very much

It does not touch me, not a whit,

If I live in Ukraine or no,

If men recall me, or forget,

Lost as I am, in foreign snow, —

Touches me not the slightest whit.

Captive, to manhood I have grown

In strangers’ homes, and by my own

Unmourned, a weeping captive still,

I’ll die ; all that is mine, I will

Bear off, let not a trace remain

In our own glorious Ukraine,

Our own land — yet a stranger’s rather.

And speaking with his son, no father

Will recall, nor bid him : Pray,

Pray, son ! Of old, for our Ukraine,

They tortured all his life away.

It does not touch me, not a whit,

Whether that son will pray, or no…

But it does touch me deep if knaves,

Evil rogues lull our Ukraine

Asleep, and only in the flames

Let her, all plundered, wake again…

That touches me with deepest pain