Amicale

Many of you have sent us your poems and we thank you. Each day, and throughout the fortnight that the operation lasts, we will have the pleasure of making you discover a poem.

On this Saturday 12 March, the first day of the "Printemps des Poètes", we are sharing a Ukrainian poem proposed by Tetiana Artemenko, a Ukrainian refugee in Strasbourg.

 

Zapovit -  Testament by Taras Shevchenko (1845)

 

When I am dead, then bury me

In my beloved Ukraine,

My tomb upon a grave mound high

Amid the spreading plain,

So that the fields, the boundless steppes,

The Dnieper's plunging shore

My eyes could see, my ears could hear

The mighty river roar.

 

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears

Into the deep blue sea

The blood of foes... then will I leave

These hills and fertile fields —

I'll leave them all and fly away

To the abode of God,

And then I'll pray... But till that day

I nothing know of God.

 

Oh bury me, then rise ye up

And break your heavy chains

And water with the tyrants' blood

The freedom you have gained.

And in the great new family,

The family of the free,

With softly spoken, kindly word

Remember also me.

 

Translated by John Weir