Once again the mail has not brought me
“I znov meni ne pryvezla”
Once again the mail has not brought me
Anything from my home, Ukraine…
Maybe I’m being punished
For my sinful deeds
By an angry God. It’s not for me
To know why I’m being punished.
And I don’t even want to know.
But my heart cries when I recall
The unhappy events
And those unhappy days
That passed over me
Once in my Ukraine…
Once they swore oaths and made pacts
Of brotherhood and sisterhood with me,
Until, like a cloud, they scattered
Without tears, without this sacred dew.
And once again in old age
I cast on mankind this…[people] No! no!
They’ve all died of cholera,
But if only they’d send me just
A scrap of paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Oh, out of sorrow and regret
So as not to see how they read
Those letters, I take walks,
I stroll looking above the sea
And console my grief.
And I remember Ukraine
And sing a little song.
People will talk, people will betray you,
But it will cheer me,
Cheer and comfort me,
And will tell me the truth.
Taras Shevchenko.
“I znov meni ne pryvezla”
("І знов мені не привезла")
1848, Kosaral (Косарал)
Translated by Michael M. Naydan
Original publication:
Taras Shevchenko, Tvory v 6 t. [Works in 6 v.], Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1968
Source:
"Ukrainian Literature. A Journal of Translations" Volume 1.2004"
Shevchenko Scientific Society, New York, USA
http://www.shevchenko.org/l