The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Síða 39

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
37
His swaddled limbs unwrapped
she nourished him,
Then, dandling him a moment
fell asleep.
In dreams she saw
her little son,
Her Johnny, grown to man,
handsome and rich.
No lonely bachelor
but a married man
In freedom it seemed,
no longer the landlord’s
but his own man.
And in their own joyous field
his wife and he
reaped their own wheat.
Their children brought their food.
The poor thing
laughed in her sleep.
Woke up—
a dream indeed it was.
She looked up at Johnny,
picked him up and swaddled him,
And back to her allotted task;
Sixty stooks her stint.
Perhaps the last of the sixty it was;
God grant it.
And God grant
this dream of thine
may be fulfilled.
MEMORIES OF FREEDOM
Dr. Hunter reports: “Ten years of
Siberia changed the gay young artist
of bright eyes and abundant locks to
a gray-beared, bald-headed old man
on whom Death had set his seal.” The
first stanza follows.-
MEMORIES OF FREEDOM
Memories of Freedom
Bring sweet sadness to the exile’s heart
And so lost liberty of mine
I dream of thee.
Never hast thou seemed to me
So fresh and young
And so surpassing fair
As now in this foreign land.
Alas! Alas!
Freedom that I sang away
Look at me from o’er the Dnieper,
Smile at me from there.
And thou my only love
Risest o’er the sea so far.
In the mist thy face appears
Like the evening star.
With thee, my only one
Thou bring’st my youthful years.
Before me like a sea—
Hamlets fair in broad array,
Cherry orchards, joyous crowds.
This -the village. This the people
Who once as brothers
Welcomed me.
PRAYER
To Tsars and kings
who tax the world,
Send dollars and ducats,
And fetters well-forged.
To toiling heads and toiling hands.
Laboring on these stolen lands
Endurance and strength.
To me, my God, on this sad earth,
Give me but love,
the heart’s paradise
And nothing more.
The year 1961 marks the centennial
anniversary of the birth of Taras Shev-
chenko. On July 8, a monument to his
memory, erected on the Legislative
grounds in Winnipeg, will be unveiled
by the Prime Minister of Canada. It is
thought fitting that to mark the oc-
casion a few selections from Schev-
chenko’s poetry should be placed be-
fore the reader.