THOUGHT by Taras Shevchenko

THOUGHT by Taras Shevchenko

The water flows into th’ blue sea, 

And never comes out,  

A kozak looks for his fate, 

But it can’t be found.

The kozak went to the far lands, 

The blue sea is waving, 

The lad’s heart is patting, 

And, the thought is craving:

“where d’ you go without a blessing?

In whose care have you left

The father and your elderly mom, 

And your young sweet lassie? 

In foreign lands, the folks are strange, 

Living with them’ s hard, 

There’ll be no one to share concerns, 

To talk heart-to-heart”.

The lad’s sitting on th’ other side, -

The blue sea goes high and low, 

He thought he would meet his fate, 

But he met a woe.

And the cranes are flying right

in perfect flocks home.

The lad’s crying- the olden ways

With thorns, are overgrown.

Translation from Ukrainian into English by Ivan Petryshyn

//poetyka.uazone.net/kobzar/dumka.html

USA, 13.03.2018