Explore "Only Friend, Clear Evening Twilight (Lyric)" by Taras Shevchenko on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Only friend, clear evening twilight, / Come and talk to me!
Cross the hills to share my prison / Very secretly.
Tell me how the sun in splendour / Sets behind the hill; / How the Dnieper lasses carry / Pitchers down to fill; / How the broad-leaved sycamore / Flings his branches wide; / How the willow kneels to pray / By the river-side; / How her green boughs kiss the water / Trailing, half asleep, / And unchristened ghosts of babies / Swing from them and weep; / How lost souls at lonely cross-roads / Cower, wild and dumb, / When the owl shrieks from the alder / Of the wrath to come; / How the magic flowers open / At the moonbeam's touch.
But of men, what would you tell me --
Me, who know so much?
Far too much! And you know nothing; / Why, you understand / Nothing of what men are doing / Now, in my dear land.
But I know, and I will tell you, / Tell you, without end.
When you speak with God tomorrow, / Look you tell Him, friend.