Forked from alexander-yakushev/"Stonebreakers" by Ivan Franko
Created
August 6, 2018 08:45
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Amateur translation from Ukrainian to English of the poem "Каменярі" ("Kamenyari") written by Іван Франко (Ivan Franko) in 1878.
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I had a dream. Like there is ahead | |
And endless, empty and the wildest plane. | |
And I stand there, held by iron chain, | |
Under the tall rock made from finest granite | |
And next to me are thousands just like me. | |
The face of everyone is marked by woe and sorrow, | |
And eyes of everyone contain fervor of love. | |
And hands of everyone are chained with snakes of iron, | |
And every shoulder's bent low to the ground, | |
Because a scary burden crushes all us down. | |
And everyone holds heavy iron hammer, | |
And loud voice from above sounds like a raging thunder: | |
"Thou split this rock! Allow no cold, nor heat | |
To stop you! Suffer pain, and thirst, and hunger, | |
Because you are to break this rock apart!" | |
And all, like one, upthrusted their hands, | |
And thousands hammers started working on the rock. | |
And thousand fragments flied in all directions, | |
We hit the cliff with force of desperation | |
Time after time still beating on that crag. | |
Like growl of waterfall, like roar of bloody battle, | |
Again our hammers clattered and again | |
And inch by inch we conquered bigger space, | |
Though lots of us were crippled by those crags, | |
We carried on, and nothing could impede us. | |
Knew everyone that we would get no glory, | |
We wouldn't be remembered in the end. | |
That only then would people walk this road, | |
When rock was battered, leveled everywhere, | |
And our bones stopped rotting underneath. | |
We didn't want the glory for the doing, | |
We are no heroes looking for the fame. | |
No, we are servants, though at free will's guidance | |
We took these bonds. Became the slaves of choice, | |
At future's way we are just the stonebreakers. | |
We all believed that we will break the rock | |
With our hands, we'll shatter the granite. | |
With our broken bones and our blood | |
We'll lay a firm foundation, and right after | |
New life, new hope will come into this world. | |
And we all knew that far in world of ours, | |
Which we abandoned for the labor, sweat and bonds, | |
Hot tears were cried by wives, and sons, and mothers. | |
That wrathful and irate, our enemies and rivals, | |
Curse us, and our purpose, our cause. | |
We knew it, and that thought was often painful, | |
The sorrow stroke, and heart was torn apart. | |
But neither tears, nor grief, nor burning pain | |
Not even curses stalled us from the work, | |
And never someone let his hammer out. | |
So there we went, united all as one | |
By sacred dream, with hammers in our hands. | |
Let us be cursed and totally forsaken! | |
We break this rock, we make the path for truth, | |
And happiness for all will walk on our bones. |
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