Page:The Kobzar of the Ukraine.pdf/101

Ready to plunge from off the height
To loved Dnieper, far below.
From that house Ukraina is seen,
And all the land of the Hetmans.
Beside the house an old gray father sits.
Beyond the river the sun goes down
As he sits, and looks, and sadly thinks.
"Alas, Alas!" the old man cries,
"Fools, that lost this land of God,
The Hetmans' land."
His brow with thought is clouded,
Something bitter he would have said
But did not.

"Much have I wandered in the world,
In peasant's coat and garb of lord.
How is it beyond the Ural,
Among the Kirghiz, Tartars?
Good God, even there it is better
Than in our Ukraina.
Perhaps because the Kirghiz
Are not Christians.
Much evil hast thou done, Oh Christ,
Hast changed the people God had made.
Our Cossacks lost their foolish heads
For truth, and the Christian faith.
Much blood they shed, their own and others.
And were they better for it?
Bah! No! They were ten times worse.
Apart from knife and auto-da-fe
They have chained up the people,