The Bondwoman’s Dream
The slave with sickle
reaped the wheat,
Then wearily limped
among the stooks;
But not to rest,
Her little son she sought
Who wakened crying
in cool nest
among the sheaves.
His swaddled limbs unwrapped
she nourished him,
Then, dandling him a moment
fell asleep.
In dreams she saw
her little son,
Her Johnny, grown to man,
handsome and rich.
No lonely bachelor
but a married man
In freedom it seemed,
no longer the landlord’s
but his own man. [[107]]
And in their own joyous field
his wife and he
reaped their own wheat,
Their children brought their food.
The poor thing
laughed in her sleep,
Woke up—
a dream indeed it was.
She looked at Johnny,
picked him up and swaddled him,
And back to her allotted task;
Sixty stooks her stint.
Perhaps the last of the sixty it was:
God grant it.
And God grant
this dream of thine
may be fulfilled.
[[108]]
Shevchenko’s birthplace.
[[109]]