Song
(Dumka "Teche voda v synje more")
The waters flow down to the sea
And never more return;
A Cossack goes to seek his fortune,
— Fortune there is none.
The Cossack journeys far away
Where dance the dark blue waves, —
Like them the Cossack’s heart is dancing,
But thought speaks and says:
“Where do you journey, without asking?
To whose care abandoned
Father, and your dear old mother,
And a fair young maiden?
In foreign parts the folk are strange,
And hard to live, indeed,
Among them ; — none to share your tears,
No one with whom to speak”.
The Cossack sits there on the further
Shore — the blue waves dance.
He dreamed that he would find good fortune:
Sorrow crossed his path.
And п о л у the cranes fly in long skeins
Towards the furtheh shore.
The Cossack weeps — the beaten tracks
Are overgrown with thorns.
Taras Shevchenko
"Dumka / "Teche voda v synje more""
(Думка/"Тече вода в синє море")
1838, S - Peterburg (С.- Петербург)
Translated by Vera Rich
Original publication:
Taras Shevchenko, “N. N. (Meni trynadtsiatyi mynalo…),”
Zibrannia tvoriv u 6 tomakh, Кyiv: Naukova dumka,
2003, p. 36–37.
Source:
Taras Shevchenko. Works. Volume 12. Shevchenko's poetry in translations.
Edited by Bolidan Krawciw. Printed by Mykola Denysiuk Printing Company
Chicago, Illinois — USA, 1963, page 33.