“Shevchenko 2077 or Cosmic Haidamaky”
My thoughts, my heavy thoughts, woe to me with you!
Why have you settled on Mars as red sands?
Why did the wind not scatter you in the blue emptiness?
Why did you not fall as dew in native Ukraine?
I look through the glass – there is no Dnieper, no willows, no field,
Only rust, only sand, and an iron fate.
But up there, among the stars, my Dnieper shines blue,
Like a ribbon gleaming in God’s braids.
It remained in that sky where the evening star burns,
And here I drink dry oxygen, like wormwood potion.
Not with a plow, but with a spade, heavy and iron,
I dig into this cold, alien, and hostile rock.
We do not sow wheat here – we sow hope,
So that it might sprout through stones, through the fierce blizzard.
And though the sun here is small, like a copper coin,
Yet in every crater I see the native, blue shore.
Plow, my son! Plow, my brother! On this red field,
We are building a new sky and for our freedom.
For the last day will come – the shackles will fall apart,
And this rusty desert, not watered with blood,
Will shed its mask like an enemy, and turn green,
And a child under the dome will laugh aloud!
And on the renewed planet, there will be no enemy,
And people will see neither master nor slave.
And there will be a son, and there will be a mother, and life – like the sea,
And our Cossack song will tear this sorrow apart!
We will build a new Sich amidst craters and dust,
So that even red-faced Mars becomes our grave –
But not one that chokes the spirit, but one that raises
Up to God, who now asks for freedom for us!