The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Blaðsíða 38

36
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Summer 1961
Selections from the poems of
TARAS SHEVCHENKO
Translated by Dr. A. J. Hunter
The following are the first stanzas
in the national poem of the Ukrainians,
often recited at concerts and other
gatherings. Hunter says: “I have given
the thought and something of the feel-
ing. The music of the original I could
not give. It begins like a Highland
dirge with wailing amphibrachs, and
there are other measures in it not used
in our language.”
TO THE DEAD
And the Living, and the Unborn,
Countrymen of mine, in Ukraine, or
out of it,
My Epistle of Friendship
'Twas dawn, ’tis evening light,
So passes Day divine.
Again the weary folk
And all things earthly
Take their rest.
I alone, remorseful
For my country’s woes,
Weep day and night,
By the thronged cross-roads,
Unheeded by all.
They see not, they know not;
Deaf ears, they hear not.
They trade old fetters for new
And barter righteousness,
Make nothing of their God.
They harness the people
With heavy yokes.
Evil they plough,
With evil they sow.
What crops will spring?
What harvest will you see?
Arouse ye, unnatural ones.
Children of Herod!
Look on this calm Eden,
Your own Ukraine,
Bestow on her tender love.
Mighty in her ruins.
Break your fetters.
Join in brotherhood.
Seek not in foreign lands
Things that are not.
Nor yet in Heaven,
Nor in stranger’s fields,
But in your own house
Lies your righteousness,
Your strength and your liberty.
h :
THE BONDWOMAN’S DREAM
Hunter said: “Shevchenko’s saddest
experience in the Ukraine was when
he visited his native village and found
his brothers and sisters in serfdom . . .
The poem, ‘The Bondwoman’s Dream’
commemorates the poet’s meeting with
his favorite sister, Katherine, Working
as a slave.”
THE BONDWOMAN’S DREAM
The slave with sickle
reaped the wheat,
Then wearily limped
among the stocks;
But not to rest,
Her little son she sought
Who wakened crying
in cool nest
among the sheaves.