is better
Than in our Ukraina.
Perhaps because the Kirghiz
Are not Christians.
Much evil hast thou done, Oh Christ,
Hast changed the people God had made.
Our Cossacks lost their foolish heads
For truth, and the Christian faith.
Much blood they shed, their own and others.
And were they better for it?
Bah! No! They were ten times worse.
Apart from knife and auto-da-fe
They have chained up the people,
And they kill them.
Oh gentlemen, Christian gentlemen!”
My grey old man, with sorrow beaten,
Ceased, and bent his brave old head.
The evening sun gilded the woods,
The river and fields were covered with gold.
Mazeppa’s cathedral in whiteness shines;
Great Bogdan’s tomb is gleaming,
The willows bend o’er the road to Kiev,
And hide the Three Brothers’ ancient graves.
Trubail and Alta, mid the reeds
Approach, unite in sisterly embrace.
Everything, everything gladdens the eyes,
But the heart is sad and will not see.
The glowing sun has bade farewell
To the dark land.
The round moon rises with her sister star,
Out they step from behind the clouds.
The clouds rejoiced
But the old man gazed,
And his tears rolled down.
“I pray Thee, merciful God,
Mighty Lord, Heavenly Judge,
Suffer me not to perish;
Grant me strength to overcome my woe.
To live out my life on these sacred hills:
To glorify Thee and rejoice in Thy beauty,
And at last, though beaten by the people’s sins.
To be buried on these lofty hills,
And to abide on them.”
He dried his tears,
Hot tears, though not the tears of youth;
And thought on the blessed years of long ago
Where was this?
What, how, and when?
Was it truth, or was it dream?
On what seas have I been sailing?
The green wood in the twilight,
The maiden with eyebrows dark,
The moon at rest among the stars,
The nightingale on the viburnum,
Whether in silence or in song
Praising the Holy God.
And all, all is in Ukraina.
The old man smiled—
Well, it may be—you can’t avoid the truth
So it was—they wooed,
They parted, they did not marry.
She left him to live alone,
To live out his life.
The old man was sad again,
Wandered long about the house,
Then prayed to God,
Went in the house to sleep,
And the moon was swathed in clouds.
Thus in a foreign land
I dreamed my dream,
As if born again to the world
In freedom once more.
Grant me, Oh God, some time,
In old age, perchance,
To stand again on these stolen hills,
In a little cottage,
To bring my heart eaten out with sorrow
To rest at last, on the hills above the Dnieper.
Kalina
The Cranberry
“My Daughter!
Why dost thou visit the grave-hill?
Why weepest thou; where goest thou?
Like a grey dove at night thou moanest.”
“It is nothing, my Mother, nothing. …”
And she went to the hill again,
While, weeping, the mother waited.
That is not Herb-o’-Dreams17
Blooming at night on the grave;
A betrothed maiden Kalina plants,
Waters it with her tears,
Beseeching Heaven:
“O God, send rain at night,
Abundant dew,
So that Kalina
May bud forth.
Perhaps my lover
From the other world
Will come.
Lo, there I’ll make a nest
And I myself
Shall fly to it,
And we shall sing together
On the bough.
Yea, we shall weep and sing
And murmur low—
Together we shall in the dawning wing
Our flight to other worlds.”
And the Kalina grew,
Spreading forth branches green. …
Three years she visited the grave—
The fourth year dawned.
That is not Herb-o’-Dreams
That blooms at night.
It is a weeping girl
Who to Kalina speaks:
“O my Kalina, broad and tall,
Watered before the sunset. …
—Nay, but broad tear-rivers
Drenched thy roots.
And to these rivers coward-talk,
Whisp’ring, would give ill-fame.
My girl companions look askance at me
And they neglect Kalina.
Deck now my head,
Wash it with dew.
Cover me from the sun
With thy broad branches
Shielding.
Then they will find me, bury me.
Mocking at me;
And thy broad branches
Children will tear off.”
At sundown in Kalina’s leaves
A bird was singing.
Under the bush a young girl lies,
She sleeps, she sleeps, nor will arise.
Tired, the youthful one. She rests for ever.
The Sun rose over the hill;
Rose the folk joyfully
From happy slumbers.
But all, all the long night through
A mother slept not.
Weeping, she could see
The vacant place at table,
Lone in the dusk,
And she wept bitterly.
The Monk18
At Kiev, in the low countrie,
Things happened once that you’ll never see.
For evermore, ’twas done;
Nevermore, ’twill come.
Yet I, my brother,
Will with hope foregather,
That this again I’ll see,
Though grief it brings to me.
To Kiev in the low countrie
Came our brotherhood so free.
Nor slave nor lord have they,
But all in noble garb so gay
Came splashing forth in mood full glad
With velvet coats the streets are clad.
They swagger in silken garments pride
And they for no one turn aside.
In Kiev, in the low countrie,
All the cossacks dance in glee,
Just like water in pails and tubs
Wine pours out ’mid great hubbubs.
Wine cellars and bars
with all the barmaids
The cossacks have bought
with their wines and meads.
With their heels they stamp
And dancing tramp,
While the music roars
And joyously soars.
The people gaze
with gladsome eyes,
While scholars of the cloister schools
All in silence bred by rules,
Look on with wondering surprise.
Unhappy scholars! Were they free,
They would cossacks dancing be.
Who is this by musicians surrounded
To whom the people give fame unbounded?
In trousers of velvet red,
With a coat that sweeps the road
A cossack comes. Let’s weep o’er his years
For what they’ve done is cause for tears.
But there’s life in the old man yet I trust,
For with dancing kicks
he spurns the dust.
In his short time left with men to mingle
The cossack sings,
this tipsy jingle.
“On the road is a crab, crab, crab.
Let us catch it grab, grab, grab.
Girls are sewing jab, jab, jab.
Let’s dance on trouble,
Dance on it double
Then on we’ll bubble
Already this trouble
We’ve danced on double
So let’s dance on trouble.
Dance on it double,
Then on we’ll bubble.”
To the Cloister of our Saviour
Old gray-hair dancing goes.
After him his joyous crowd
And all the folk of Kiev so proud.
Dances he up to the doors—
“Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!” he roars.
Ye holy monks give greeting
A comrade from the prairie meeting.
Opens the sacred door,
The Cossack enters in.
Again the portal
