For Gogol.

• Author: Shevchenko, Taras

In the hive, words on words. One chokes the heart, The other tears it apart, A third weeps softly And God hasn't heard. Who will I show her to, Who will greet The new language, and guess The great word? Everyone's deaf, asleep, In chains... and who cares? You laugh, I weep, My grand friend. What fruit Do our tears bear? Strange fruit, brother. Freedom's canons Won't echo across Ukraine. No father will ever surrender His son for honor's Sake, neither for Glory, nor for freedom. He won't cut him down. No, he'll fatten him And, later, sell him To a Moscow butcher. Let it be, brother. You'll laugh; I'll weep. It is impossible to understand the soul of Ukraine, or Russia's current war against it, without reading Taras Shevchenko, whose poetry in the vernacular of Ukraine's indigenous population was the first to give voice to the people's griefs, hopes, and aspirations for freedom from imperial...