The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1964, Blaðsíða 26

24
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1964
“Not with a just and sacred thunder-
bolt
Shalt thou be slain; but dull blades
of revolt
Shall butcher thee or, as for some foul
dog,
A dub shall batter thee an epilogue.”
The final curtain in the drama rises:
“And Mary's suffering Son redeemed
you there;
His gospel touched your soul to heal
and bless;
And to the public squares and palaces
Bearing the Word of Truth, the streets
you trod
To praise the veritable, living God.’
“The Neophytes” merits a place be-
side other inspired poetry such as
Dante’s “Divina Commedia,” Milton’s
“Paradise Lost,” Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s
Progress”, and Petursson’s “Passion
Hymns.”
Taras Shevchenko was steeped in the
historic past and idealized the ancient
Cossacks. In “The Nights of Taras”
he says:
“When I recall thee, native land,
My heart is pained with grief!
What happened to our Cossack realm,
Its leaders red of cloak?”
And in “Ivan Pidkova”:
“They lived as masters-freedom’s joy
And glory were their gain:
All that has jrassed, and what is left
Is grave-mounds on the plain.”
Taras Shevchenko’s love of liberty
deepens in exile and confinement: —
(from poem dedicated to “H. Z.”)
“There is no greater sorrow than
recalling
In dread captivity one’s former
freedom
And yet I do indeed remember you,
My precious liberty. Never before
Have you appeared to me so fresh and
youthful,
So wonderfully lovely as today
Here in this alien land, in exile too.”
Shevchenko’s deep love of land was
bound to diffuse and find expression
in specific objects and scenes of that
love. One is the love of home and
family:
“Blessed is lie who has a house to
boast of,
And in that house a sister and
a mother!
So manifold a blessing, it is true,
Never in all my life have I enjoyed,
And yet I managed somehow to
survive.” (Kos-Aral, 1848)
Scenic beauty gave joy to Shevchenko
which he expressed in beautiful lyric
verse. The setting is bound to be rural
—in Ukraine. “An Evening” is selected,
a beautiful lyric poem of three stanzas
which the translators considered to
be the poet’s most “pictorial” poem.
The first stanza follows:
“A cherry grove beside the cottage
stands,
The beetles hum above the cherry-
trees,
And ploughmen homeward plod in
spent unease,