The Kobzar of the Ukraine / Being select poems of Taras Shevchenko done into English verse with biographical fragments by Alexander Jardine Hunter

by Taras Shevchenko

Gods of earth, the Tsars,

Are the ploughs and the ships,

And all good things of earth

For these little gods.

To toiling hands,

To toiling brains

Is given to plough the barren field,

To think, to sow, and take no rest

And reap the fields anon.

Such the reward of toiling hands.