Chapter V (3)

Shall we again e’er meet together
Or are we parted once for all?
The word of truth and of pure love
Has been cast out to steppe and jungle.
Let it be so! ’Tis not our mother!
To her we still must pay respect;
It is God’s will! Respect it fully!
Be humble now and pray to God
And think yourselves of one another,
And love our dear Ukraina.
So love it ... in this time of woe,
And in that last and awful minute.
Let each pray to the Lord for her!

POEMS OF EXILE

During the first years of Shevchenko’s service in the Russian army, when he was in the fortress of Orsk and at Kos-Aral, he was able with difficulty to write. His mind was filled with longings for Ukraine, with dreams of his own past life, and some of the poems of this period are among his finest personal lyrics.

1847

Songs of mine, O songs of mine,
You are all I have.
Do not leave me now, I pray,
In this dreadful time.
Fly to me, my little dovelets,
With your wings of gray.
From the spreading Dnipro fly here
To the steppes and stay
With the poor and needy Kirghiz.
They are really poor,
Yes, and naked, but in freedom
They can pray to God.
Fly to me, my darling thoughts,
With calm words and true,
I shall greet you as my children
And shall weep with you.

N. N.

Sunset is coming, mountains are shadowed,
Birds sink to quiet, fields cease their murmur,
Peoples are gladly stopping their labors,
But I am looking, while my heart’s flying
To a dark garden in Ukraina;
Flying, I’m flying, my thoughts ever roaming,
Thus my poor heart is receiving some quiet.
Fields are in shadow, mountains and forest,
In the blue heaven, stars are appearing.
Stars, O bright stars, for I am weeping,
Have you come out yet there in Ukraina?
Are the black eyes there awaiting your coming
In the blue heaven? Have they forgotten?
If they’ve forgotten, do not disturb them.
Let them not notice what I am suffering!

N. N.

My thirteenth birthday was now over.
Near where I dwelt, I pastured lambs.
Perhaps it was the bright sun shining,
Perhaps it was something in me,--
I felt so happy, yes, so happy,
I loved the Lord....
They called me to share in their fortune,
But I sat on the little hill
And prayed to God. I have no memory
Of what as little boy I sought
When I was praying so contented,
Or what a cheerful thought I had.
The Lord’s own heaven and the village,
The lambs appeared to be so merry.
The sun just warmed,--it did not bake.

It was not long the sun was warm,
Not long endured the prayer.
It ’gan to bake, it turned bloodred,
And heaven it burned up.
I wondered, as if waked from sleep,
The village turned to black,
God’s heaven turned unto dark blue
And lost its golden sheen.
I looked again upon the lambs,--
They were no lambs of mine.
I turned again unto the homes,
There was no home of mine.
For God had nothing given me,
And then my tears welled forth,
Such bitter tears. A little girl
Upon the selfsame road,
Not far away from where I stood,
Was plucking at the hemp.
She noticed I was weeping loud;
She came and spoke to me,
She wiped away my bitter tears
And gave to me a kiss.

Again the sun was shining brightly,
Again all things in the wide world
Were mine, the lambs, the fields and forests,
And we were smiling as we drove
Another’s lambs to water.

How foolish! Now, when I remember,
My heart weeps sadly and still aches;
Why did the Lord not let me linger
Some time in that dear paradise?
I would have died a simple ploughman,
I would have known naught of the world,
I would ne’er been a fool to others,
Would not have cursed both men and (God).

This poem from the Fortress of Orsk shows again the great impression that his first love Oksana Kovalenkivna made upon him. It is one of the few poems that are definitely autobiographical in character.

RETURN

After Shevchenko returned from his service in the army, he was a broken man. His health was shattered, and while his spirit was not quenched, there is a note of finality in much that he undertook. He had been forced to realize the limitations on his sphere of activity. There is a deeper note of austerity in his writings and a different spirit animates most of his verses, a spirit which becomes more strong and poignant as the end neared. The two following poems were written at Nizhni Novgorod on his way back to St. Petersburg.

+Fortune+

You never played me false, I swear it:
You grudged to me a brother, sister,
And e’en a friend; you took me early
And led me as a little boy
And put me in a school for peasants,
Where I might learn from drunken clerk.
“Work hard, my darling! You will later
Become a man!”--These were your words,
And I obeyed, I studied hard,
And learned my lesson.
And you lied!
What sort of man! ’Twas all in vain.
We never played you false, I swear it,
We lived our life! And never, never
Left any seed of lie behind us ...

So let us go, my humble fortune,
My friend so poor, so free from guile,
Let us go on; ahead is glory
And glory is my only guide.

+The Muse+

O thou most chaste and holy maiden,
Of Phoebus the beloved young sister,
You took me when I was a child
And carried me into the meadow;
There on a tomb upon the meadow,
You wrapped me in a cloud of gray
Just as that freedom in the valley
And fondled me and sang your measures
And worked your charms ...
And I, meanwhile ...
O my enchantress ever fair,
You helped me wheresoe’er I was,
You watched o’er me wheree’er I was,
And everywhere, my star of brilliance,
You glowed, by evil never spotted,
And on the steppe, the barren steppe,
In my deepest prison
You shone there in gleaming raiment
Like flower in the field.
From the filthy hole of prison
You flew out to meet me
As a bird both pure and holy,
And above my person
You flew down with pennons golden
And you sang so sweetly.
You refreshed my thirsty spirit
With the living water.
And so I live, above my head
With all your Godlike charm and beauty,
You blaze forever, star of heaven.
You will receive me, cherubim,
Revered six-winged seraphim,
My holy counselor adored,
My fate which leads me since my youth,
Do not forsake me!
And at night
In daytime, evening, and the morning
Be with me ever, teach to me
With my sincere and truthful lips
To tell the truth!
Then help me too
To send a prayer unto my end;
And when I die, my sacred friend,
My loving mother, place your son
Within his small and narrow casket,
And show at least one little tear
In your immortal, holy eyes!

TO MARKO VOVCHOK

The appearance of the Narodni Opovidaniya (Folk Sketches) of Marko Vovchok in 1858 was an event in Ukrainian literature. It was the penname of Maria Markovich (1834-1907) but she wrote in Ukrainian for only a few years. Her stories of the hardships of serfdom, especially on the women, were very powerful and were translated into Russian by Turgenev and others of the leading authors. Shevchenko welcomed her literary advent most warmly, for he saw in her his most talented prose successor.

+To Marko Vovchok+

(_In memory of January 24, 1859_)

Some time ago beyond the Urals
I wandered and I prayed to God
That our dear truth would never perish,
That our dear word would never vanish.
My prayer was heard.
God sent to us
In you a mild and tender prophet,
A bitter scourge of all the greedy
And ruthless men.
My beacon star,
You are the holy star I wished for,
The youthful strength that I desired!
Shine on me, shed your warmth afar,
And now refresh my broken spirit,
My poor and shattered heart and power,
My hungry heart!
I live anew
And call to life from out the grave
Free thought that bides forever true,
Free thought forever.--My good fortune!
Our prophet! Yes! my darling daughter,
I dare to call my poems yours.

MARY

After his return from imprisonment, Shevchenko planned to write a poem on the Blessed Virgin and equate her lot with the fate of Ukraine and the average Ukrainian peasant woman. To do this, he made certain studies in the apocryphal legends and read some of the more liberal books of the day.

As a result he produced this poem on unorthodox lines. He was bitterly attacked for it but his dominant mood is throughout reverence for his subject, and the preface is thoroughly in line with the traditional faith.

+Mary+

“_Rejoice, for thou hast renewed all creatures._”
(_Akafist of the Blessed Virgin, l. 10_)

I place my hope and consolation
On Thee, my Heaven fair and bright,
Upon Thy mercy without limit,--
I place my hope and consolation
On Thee, O Mother ever holy,
The holy Power of all saints,
All-sinless and forever blest!
I pray to Thee, I weep and sob;
Look, holy Mother, down on them,
Those prisoners who have been seized
And who are blind; give them the strength
Of Thine own martyred Son, that they
May bear their cross and heavy fetters
Unto the end, the bitter end.
O worthy of all praise!
I bless Thee,
The holy Queen of earth and heaven;
Hark to their groans, and send to them
A worthy end, O ever worshipped;
Without ill feeling, I will sing,
When the poor villages are happy,
Thy sacred fortune everywhere
With quiet and with cheerful psalms.
But now there’s tears and woe and weeping
For each poor soul and, poor myself,
I add to them the final mite.