Explore "The Reaper" by Taras Shevchenko on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Through the fields the reaper goes / Piling sheaves on sheaves in rows; / Hills, not sheaves, are these.
Where he passes howls the earth, / Howl the echoing seas.
All the night the reaper reaps, / Never stays his hands nor sleeps, / Reaping endlessly; / Whets his blade and passes on.
Hush, and let him be.
Hush, he cares not how men writhe / With naked hands against the scythe.
Wouldst thou hide in field or town?
Where thou art, there he will come; / He will reap thee down.
Serf and landlord, great and small; / Friendless wandering singer -- all, / All shall swell the sheaves that grow / To mountains; even the Tsar shall go.
And me too the scythe shall find / Cowering alone behind / Bars of iron; swift and blind, / Strike, and pass, and leave me, stark / And forgotten in the dark.