"The boat" poem of Taras Shevchenko (Ukrainian-to-English translation by Vera Rich)

THE BOAT
("Choven" / "Viter z haiem rozmovliaie")

The wind blows, speaking with the grove,
It whispers in the reeds,
Down the river glides the boat,
Lone upon the stream.    
On it glides, swamped by the tide, —
No one checks its course;
For who is there?   
The fisher-lad
Dwells in this life no more.
It glided down to the blue sea,     
Which tossed it, unrestrained...
The mountain-waves had sport with it —
And not a chip remained.
It's no long path—as when a boat
Drifts to the blue sea,—     
An orphan takes to foreign parts,
And then—to misery.
There good folk have sport with him,
Like the chilly waves;
Afterwards they gaze their fill    
How the orphan weeps;
Ask: "Where is the orphan now?"
— "I've neither heard nor seen!"

Taras Shevchenko
"Choven" / "Viter z haiem rozmovliaie"
("Човен" / "Вітер з гаєм розмовляє")
1841, S.-Petersburg (С.- Петербург)

Translated by Vera Rich

Source of the original poem in Ukrainian: Taras Shevchenko. Zibrannia tvoriv: U 6 t. — K., 2003. — T. 1: Poeziia 1837-1847. — S. 191; S. 675-676

Source of English translation of the poem: Taras Shevchenko."Song out of Darkness". Selected poems translated from the Ukrainian by Vera Rich. London, 1961, p. 15