Read Ebook: The Kobzar of the Ukraine Being select poems of Taras Shevchenko done into English verse with biographical fragments by Alexander Jardine Hunter by Shevchenko Taras Hunter Alexander J Alexander Jardine Translator

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Ebook has 191 lines and 24847 words, and 4 pages

Page

Introduction 9

POEMS.

BALLADS:

The Monk 13 Hamaleia 21 The Night of Taras 30

TALE:

Naimechka; or The Servant 39

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL POETRY:

Caucasus 68 To the Dead 81 A Dream 96 The Bondwoman's Dream 106 To the Makers of Sentimental Idyls 109

A Poem of Exile 114 Memories of Freedom 120 Memories of an Exile 123 Death of the Soul 124 Hymn of Exile 126

RELIGIOUS POEMS:

On the 11th Psalm 130 Prayers 132

EARLY POEMS:

Mighty Wind 136 The Water Fairy 138

HUMOROUS AND SATIRICAL:

Hymn of the Nuns 140 To the Goddess of Fame 141

PREDICTION AND FAREWELL:

Iconoclasm 143 My Testament 144

BIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENTS.

Who Was Taras Shevchenko 11 The Cossacks 19 Kobzars 29 The Forming of a Life 36 A Father's Legacy 67 The Meaning of Serfdom 79 Freedom and Friends 94 A Triumphal March 103 Autocrat Versus Poet 112 Siberian Exile 118 Returning Home 127

The artistic instincts of the peasant women find satisfaction largely in the working of embroidery, each district having its own characteristic types of design.

One of Shevchenko's favorite fancies was to compare his versification to the work of the girls and women embroidering their designs on their garments. He frequently speaks of himself as "embroidering verses."

It is a favorite device of Ukrainian book-makers to decorate their pages with miniature landscapes and little figures.

The frontispiece of the present work is a picture of Shevchenko in youth from an original painted by himself. On page 129 we see him as he looked after his return from exile.

LIFE

Born 1811, February 26.

Died 1861, February 26.

INTRODUCTION.

Nearly twenty years ago the translator of these poems was sent by the Presbyterian church as a medical missionary to a newly settled district in Manitoba. A very large proportion of the incoming settlers in this district were Ukrainians, indeed it was largely owing to the interest taken in these newcomers that the writer was sent there.

It was Mr. John Bodrug who first, introduced him to the study of the poems of Shevchenko and with his help translations of three or four of the poems were made a dozen years ago. Press of other work prevented the following up of this study till last summer when with the help of Mr. Sigmund Bychinsky translations were made of the other poems here given, and considerable time spent in arriving at an understanding of the spirit of the poems and the nature of the situations described. Then the more formidable task was approached of trying to carry over not only the thought but something of the style, spirit and music of the original into the English tongue.

The spirit of Shevchenko was too independent to suffer him to be much bound by narrow rules of metre and rhyme. The translator has found the same attitude convenient, for when the versification may be varied as desired it is much easier to preserve the original thoughts intact.

The writer's thanks are due for help and advice to Messrs. Arsenych, Woicenko, Rudachek, Ferley, Sluzar and Stechyshyn and especially to Mrs. Bychinsky and for help with the manuscript to Miss Sara Livingstone.

A. J. H.

WHO WAS TARAS SHEVCHENKO?

How many English-speaking people have heard of Taras Shevchenko?

What "Uncle Tom's Cabin" did for the negroes of the United States of America the poems of Shevchenko did for the serfs of Russia. They aroused the conscience of the Russian people, and the persecutions suffered by the poet at the hands of the autocracy awakened their sympathy.

It was two days after the death of Shevchenko that the czar's ukase appeared granting freedom to the serfs. Possibly the dying poet knew it was coming and died the happier on that account.

But in still another way does this man's figure stand out. In the country called the Ukraine is a nation of between thirty and forty millions of people, having a language of their own--the language in which these poems were composed.

This has been, as it were, a nation lost, buried alive one might say, beneath the power of surrounding empires.

They have a terrible history of oppression, alternating with desperate revolts against Polish and Muscovite tyranny.

In these poems speaks the struggling soul of a downtrodden people. To our western folk, reared in happier surroundings there is a bitter tang about some of them, somewhat like the taste of olives, to which one must grow accustomed. The Slavonic temperament, too, is given to melancholy and seems to dwell congenially in an atmosphere misty with tears. But he gravely misreads their literature who fails to perceive the grim resolve beneath the sorrow.

In the struggle of the Ukrainians for freedom the spirit of this poet, who was born a serf, remains ever their guiding star.

THE MONK

It happened sometimes, when a cossack warrior found his energies failing and his joints growing stiff from much campaigning, he would bethink him of his sins and deeds of blood.

These things weighing on his mind, he would decide to spend the remainder of his life in a monastery, but before taking this irrevocable step, he would hold a time of high revel with his old comrades. This poem pictures such an event.

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.

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