Chapter VIII

The holy mother
Went everywhere with her dear son;
She listened to his every word;
She watched his acts and was enthralled
And joyed in still anxiety
When she looked at him.
For he would
Sit on the Mount of Olives often
And rest a while. Jerusalem
Was proudly spread before his eyes--
The priest of Israel flashed proudly
In all his golden robes and rich,
A humble slave of Roman gold!
An hour, two, would pass away.
He would not stir or look at her
But weep and wonder at the wealth
Of the Judean capital.
Then she would weep and make her way
Down to the spring in a ravine
And quickly would bring back with her
Fresh water, and would humbly wash
His sacred feet which were so weary.
She’d give him drink and brush him off
And shake the dust from his white tunic,
She’d mend a hole, and then again
Go to the fig tree and sit down
And look, an ever holy mother,
At her sad son, while he was resting.
Perhaps the children then would run
From out the city; they would follow
Him always through the busy streets
And sometimes to the Mount of Olives
The little ones would come to him.
They would run up,--“O holy ones,
And sinless too”--he used to say.
Then when he saw the children, he
Would rise and kiss them, give his blessing.
He’d play with them just like a child,
Put on a wreath, and gay and happy,
He’d go with all his children dear
Unto Jerusalem to preach,
Tell to the wicked words of truth.
They would not hear and crucified him.
When they led him to Golgotha,
Thou stoodst at a crossroad nearby
With the same children (for the men,
His brothers and disciples too)
Had lost their courage and had fled.
“O let him go, O let him go!
He’ll lead you to the self same fate.”
She said this to the children, then
She fell upon the earth and fainted.

Thine only child was crucified
And Thou, beneath the hedge abiding,
Went back again to Nazareth.
The widow long before was buried
By strangers in a hired casket.
She’d been alone for her dear John
In prison had been murdered too.
Thy Joseph was no longer there
And Thou wast left alone to live
Just as a broken stick.
Yes, that
Was Thy sad fate, O mother dear!
His brothers and disciples too,
Unsteady men of little soul,
Concealed themselves from hangmen cruel.
They hid and then they separated,
And Thou wast forced to seek them out....
By night they gathered round about Thee
And came to grieve with thee and mourn,
But Thou, the greatest among women,
Didst scatter all their fear and terror,
Just as the chaff that blows away,
With Thy most holy word of fire;
Thou sentst at last Thy holy spirit
Into their petty souls!
All praise,
All praise to Thee, O holy Mary!
The holy men regained their poise,
They travelled through the whole wide world
And in the name of Thy great Son,
Thy suffering and martyred Child,
They spread the news of love and truth
Throughout the world; Thou weptst and grievedst
And ’neath a hedge among tall grass,
Thou starvedst to death.
Amen! Amen!

HOSEA, CHAPTER XIV

After his return from the army, Shevchenko’s poetry took a more austere note. A large part of his latest works were adaptations of the Old Testament and the warnings of the Prophets were transfigured into lessons for the Ukrainians and on the fate of Ukraine. They deal with the same themes that he had treated earlier--the uselessness of depending upon the Russian autocracy, the weaknesses of the people of the day, especially the intellectuals, and the need for all the people to apply the lessons of brotherhood to all their fellows. Shevchenko’s contact with some of the Russian radicals may have influenced him to some degree but these poems can be read as general denunciations of the vices of men and countries. Never more than in the works of his last period did Shevchenko become a stern, commanding teacher holding up to all men everywhere the proper course of actions for human things to pursue. Now more than ever he became a great ethical teacher not only for his generation and people but for all the nations of the world.

+Hosea, Chapter XIV+

(_Imitation_)

Yes, you will perish, Ukraina,
And leave no trace upon the earth!
And yet you once were richly famous
For good and wealth!
O Ukraina,
My dear, my innocent poor land,
Why does the Lord send you this fate?
Why punish you?
’Tis for Bohdan,
And for the mad, insensate Peter,
And for the pagan lords around them,
He ruins you and drives you down,
Destroys you so.
And it is just!
He long with patience looked upon you
And watched your silence and neglect,
Your sinful womb that bore such monsters,
And spake in wrath: “I will destroy
Your beauty and your charm superb.
You will be broken. In their wrath
Your sons will slay you, when full grown,
And others, ill-conceived, shall die
Within your womb, and fade away
As unhatched chickens that are not.
With tears, the tears of a sad mother
I will fill full your towns and fields
That all the earth may see and know
That I am ruler--and see all.”

Arise, O mother, and return
Unto your spacious home and rest.
You have been burdened long enough
With sins your sons have wrought at times.
A sad and mournful mother, rest
And say to your unfaithful sons,
That they will perish in their sins,
That their dishonor and their treason,
Their crookedness are cut within
The souls of men by fire fierce
And by a bloody flaming sword,
Their destined punishment cries out
And their good tsar will never save them,
Their mild and drunken sovereign lord!
He will not give them food or drink
Or yet a horse to mount unsaddled
And gallop off. You cannot flee,
You cannot hide!
For everywhere
Avenging truth will seek you out.
Men will watch for you, catch you then,
And they will not waste time in trials.
In fetters they will firmly bind you
And take you home for men to see,
And on a cross without a hangman
Or yet a tsar they will spread you,
And nail you fast, tear you apart,
And, dogs, they will give your fresh blood
Unto the dogs to drink.
Add this
And say this word again to them.
Speak plainly, Say, “You have done this.
With foul and filthy hands you made
Your hope and then you say,
‘The tsar’s our God, the tsar’s our hope
And he will feed and will protect
The widow and the orphans.’” ... No!
Say this to them: “The gods are mad,
The idols in the palace rich.”
Tell them that truth will rise again,
Not the departed, ancient word
That now is rotten; a new word
Will come with might unto the people
And save the plundered and the lost
From the false favor of the tsar.

+I do not murmur at the Lord+

I do not murmur at the Lord,
I do not murmur at a soul,
I fool myself in my despair
And sing as well.
For I will plough
My meadow, my poor, humble field,
This word of mine; a harvest rich
Will come some day from it.
I fool
Myself, my own poor, humble person
And no one else, as I can see.

Be thou ploughed, my humble meadow,
From the top to bottom.
Be thou planted, this black meadow
With the shining freedom.
Be thou ploughed, and well turned over,
Let the soil be levelled.
Be thou sown with seed most fertile,
Watered by good fortune.
Be thou turned in all directions,
Ever fertile meadow.
Be not sown with words unmeaning
But with reason, meadow.
Men will come to reap the harvest
In a happy moment--
Be well worked and be well levelled,
Poor and barren meadow.

Do I not fool myself again
With this fantastic word of hope?
I do! But it is better far
To fool myself, my very self,
Than live at peace with my cruel foe
And vainly murmur at the Lord.

THE APPROACHING END

The end of Shevchenko’s life was approaching. In the autumn of 1860 he became conscious of the fact that his health would not allow him to carry out his dreams of marrying, having a family, and living in a little home on the bank of the Dniper in Ukraine. He expressed this feeling in his poem _The years of youth are passed away_, written on October 19, and soon after he consulted a physician because of his difficulty in breathing. His friends could not realize his condition but he failed rapidly and during January, 1861, he was able to do little work. He finished his last poem, _Is it not time for us to stop?_ on February 25. It was the end for early the next morning, the day after his birthday, his eyes closed forever.

+The years of youth are passed away+

The years of youth are passed away ...
A chilling blast has swept upon me
From hope.
The winter’s on its way.
So sit alone in your cold home
With no one there to hear your word,
With no one to receive your thought,
No one at all, no one at all!
Sit there alone, until hope fools
The fool himself and mocks him well
And seals with frost his lonely eyes
And scatters all his haughty thoughts,
Just as the snowflakes on the steppe.
Sit there alone in your poor home,
Wait not for spring, a holy fate!
It never will appear again
To deck your garden with its green
Or to renew your faded hope.
It will not come to set free thoughts
Again at freedom. No, sit there
And wait for not a thing at all.

+Is it not time for us to stop?+

Is it not time for us to stop,
My neighbor poor, but yet so dear,
The writing of these worthless verses
And to commence our preparations
To go upon a distant journey?
Unto that world, my friend, to God,
We’ll hurry on to take our rest....
We’re wearied now, we’ve grown so old
And somehow we have gained some sense.
That is enough!
We’ll go to sleep,
We’ll go to rest in a small cabin ...
The cabin’s cheerful, as you know!

We’ll not go, we are not going,--
Friend, it is too early!
Let us go, and let us sit
And enjoy this world.
Let us look, my humble fortune,
Think how broad it is,
How it is both broad and cheerful,
Clear and yet so deep!
Let us go, my friendly star,
And ascend the mount,
There we’ll rest ...
At that same moment
All the stars, thy sisters,
The eternal, heavenly stars,
Will swim up a-shining.
There we’ll wait, my sister dear,
Ever holy comrade,
And with chaste and pious lips
Let us pray to God.
We will start in utter quiet
On our distant journey,
O’er the bottomless and raging
Lethe we must pass.
Bless me for this, O my comrade,
With a holy glory!

But while we wait to meet the future,
We will go simply--and direct
To pay to Aesculapius
To see if he can trick old Charon
And the wise Fates who spin.
There after
While the wise grandsir is a dreaming,
We’ll stop and write a mighty epic--
And steam it well above the earth
And weave hexameters for it,
And take it to the attic
A breakfast for the mice ...
And then
We’ll sing in prose--and not by notes
And not as chance may say ...
My friend,
O sacred guide of my whole life,
Before the fire has gone out,
We’d better go to Charon now!

O’er the Lethe bottomless
With its raging waters
We will sail and carry with us
All our sacred glory,
Ever youthful and eternal ...
For--I dread it, friend!
If I have to go without it,
I’ll be very mournful,
So whether it’s on Phlegethon,
Or on the Styx in heaven,
Or on Dnipro, that mighty river,
I shall construct a little cabin
In the eternal forest there
And plant a garden round the cabin
And thou wilt come to its cool shade
And there I’ll seat thee like a queen;
We will recall Dnipro, Ukraina,
The cheerful forest villages,
The mountain tombs upon the steppes,
And we will sing a cheerful song.

Transcriber’s Notes

Surrounding characters have been used to indicate _italics_
or +small caps+
Set poem titles in small caps as needed
Retained inconsistent hyphenation of “black-haired”
Retained inconsistent use of space in “folk song” (and plural)
In the Table of Contents, changed “Haydamakí” to “Haydamaki”
p. 6 changed “Mickiewiez” to “Mickiewicz”
p. 7 changed “was” to “were” in “exploits of the Kozaks were”
p. 7 changed “conqueroring” to “conquering”
p. 12 changed “be” to “he” in “in St. Petersburg he”
p. 12 removed period between “relaxation” and “--to”
p. 21 changed “superviser” to “supervisor”
p. 25 changed “made” to “make” in “and make trouble”
p. 25 changed “set” to “sent” in “and sent back”
p. 25 changed “peninsular” to “peninsula”
p. 29 changed “ecstacies” to “ecstasies”
p. 30 changed “acqaintance” to “acquaintance” in “renewed his
acquaintance”
p. 31 added period after “unjustly accused”
p. 43 changed “Koliischchina” to “Koliishchina”
p. 46 changed “unforgiveable” to “unforgivable”
p. 55 set chapter heading and title in all caps
p. 58 changed “Christianty” to “Christianity”
p. 67 changed “has” to “have” in “others have”
p. 70 italicized “_The Poplar_” before “is a good example”
p. 81 italicized “_Ivan Pidkova_” in “In _Ivan Pidkova_”
p. 85 changed double-quote to single-quote before “Oh my wretched
Ukraina,”
p. 85 added closing single-quote after “trampled.”
p. 86 changed period to comma following “heavens”
p. 104 added close quote after “snow-covered!”
p. 108 italicized “_Haydamaki_”
p. 113 changed “self-same” to “selfsame”
p. 113 removed close quote after “O tapster!”
p. 129 moved “St. John” attribution to separate line and removed
italics
p. 148 unitalicized “the” in “the _Dream_” and “the _Heretic_”
p. 148 changed “Khmllnitsky” to “Khmelnitsky”
p. 150 set “+Three Souls+” in small caps rather than italics
p. 157 added quote before “You have drunk”
p. 158 added quote after “sobbing.”
p. 158 added quotes before “I have” and after “Germans.”
p. 158 added quote before “You have done”
p. 163 moved period inside parenthesis in “(_They sat down_.)”
p. 171 removed hyphen in “fellow countrymen”
p. 179 changed comma to period between “Moscow” and “Kostomariv”
p. 189 added close parenthesis to “(Folk Sketches)”
p. 194 changed period to comma following “And says,”
p. 196 removed quote after “once,”