In these poems speaks the struggling soul of a downtrodden people. To our western folk, reared in happier surroundings there is a bitter tang about some of them, somewhat like the taste of olives, to which one must grow accustomed . The Slavonic temperament, too, is given to melancholy and seems to dwell congenially in an atmosphere misty with tears. But he gravely misreads their literature who fails to perceive the grim resolve beneath the sorrow. In the struggle of the Ukrainians for freedom the spirit of this poet, who was born a serf, remains ever their guiding star...

Multilingual Monthly Poetry Project is a project oriented to gather multiple translations and multiple contributions of one chosen poem for the current month. Welcome to the world of interpretations! The poet, while being heavily ill, thought that he was about to die. Feeling the grieve toward the calamity of his Fatherland - Ukraine, he writes this poem as legacy to Ukrainians. Shevchenko tells people of Ukraine that even death won't make him leave his beloved land to go to God until he sees them throwing off the shackles of captivity, bringing Ukraine to its independence...