Evening Tea
I drink my tea on a silent evening
as stars come out in a rhythm slow.
One by one they shyly gather
and greet the friends that with them glow.
Nocturnal children of the darkness,
like bats they sleep in burning day
then flit about as the twilight blushes
and on the ebon pathways play.
I drink my tea on a quiet evening;
the moon, perhaps, will be rising soon.
I almost think I hear it coming,
humming a thinly argent tune.
I sit, but inside my heart is dancing
as steam is rising from my cup.
Soon I shall see the lunar rising
and wake the lonely midnight up.
The ballet of the hallowed heavens
I echo in my heart and soul.
I drink my tea on a silent evening;
above me endless circles roll.
Kobzar
The wind speaks quietly of you, Taras;
it kindly recalls your name's great story.
East and West, all of us are kith and kin,
born from sorrowful Adam, sharing fates,
one family, the household of free souls,
though some there be who wish to forget it.
Yet still again the memory returns
when the slave unchained, wind on his bright face,
rises and undoes the tyrant's cold rule.
For all of us are before God's throne,
and in that high throneroom hope of freedom
never dies but always has a new life.
On earth below the wheatlands are stained red;
alas, it is the blood of innocents
but the wind remembers an old promise
that the tyrant's throat will be slit.
The wind speaks quietly of you, Taras;
it blows across the Dnipro waterway.
On the far side of its depths there is hope.
The gilded fields of wheat still grow upward.
The steppes are still unending in their scope.
On monk's hill your relic was buried,
that the airs of your homeland might keep you.
The wind speaks quietly of you, Taras.
There is hope where freedom is well planted,
and there is freedom where poets still hope.
