by Ivan Franko, 1878
Translated by Percival Cundy, 1905
I saw a vision strange. Before me seemed to stretch
A measureless, but waste and savage open plain;
And I fettered captive, chained both hand and foot,
Was standing at the base of a high granite cliff,
And with me other thousands, captives like myself.
The brow of every one was seamed by lines of pain,
But in each eye there glowed a sacrificial flame.
The fetters held each one in serpent-like embrace,
And every back was bowed, each face bent toward the earth,
For all seemed weighted down beneath a heavy load.
Each one held tightly gripped a mighty iron sledge,
And sudden from the sky a voice like thunder came:
“Break through this granite wall! Let neither heat nor cold
Your efforts stay! In spite of hunger, toil and thirst,
Slack not, for yours it is to cleave this rock in twain.”
At this we all as one our sledges swung on high,
A thousand blows crashed down like thunder on the cliff;
Where each one fell the granite face was shattered, and
The rock in fragments flew. With desperation’s strength
We hammered without cease against that granite brow.
Like to a cataract’s roar, or bloody battle’s din,
Our sledges thudding beat in never-ceasing roll;
Step by step advancing, new ground we ever gained;
Though many a one fell maimed and crippled in the fight,
Yet still we onward pressed, or naught could us withstand.
And yet each one knew well that neither praise of men,
Nor meed of glory should our bloody toil requite,
We know that ere man’s foot should tread upon that road,
Ere we could drive it through and level gradings make,
Our bones would lie thereon, or bleach along its sides.
But in our hearts no thirst of glory found a place
For we were neither knights nor champions seeking fame,
Bondslaves we were, yet who, of our free will, on us
The chains had ta’en. Self-made slaves for liberty’s sake,
We toil as pioneers to make straight paths for her.
And each held firm belief that by our own strong arms
That prisoning rock we’d rend and break a passage through;
That by our strength, and after, with our bones,
A solid highway we could build, so that following us.
Into the world, new life, new hopes might find a way.
And every one knew too, that somewhere in the world,
That we had left behind for chains and painful toil.
Were mothers, sweethearts, wives, and little ones who wept,
And friends and enemies, who, pitying or in wrath,
Cursed us and our emprise, and our toil achieved.
We knew all this, and many a time our souls it grieved,
Our hearts would fail almost as sorrow gripped the breast;
Yet neither grief, discouragement, nor weariness,
Nor fear of those who cursed could stay us in our toil,
And not a one let fail the weapon from his hands.
So thus we onward move, into one body fused
By one great purpose holy, sledges in our hands.
What though we be accursed and by the world forgot,
We’ll rend the prisoning rock and lay straight paths and true.
That light and liberty may come e’en o’er our bones.