Taras Shevchenko Quote

Blaze of lights and music calling,
Music weeping, rising, falling!
Like rare and precious diamond,
Youthful eyes are gleaming fair,
Joy and hope are shining there
In laughing eyes. All bliss is sent
To eyes so young and innocent!
On all sides, people laugh and smile,
All are dancing, only I
Like one bewitched, look on meanwhile
And weep in secret, weep and sigh...
Why do I weep? Perhaps that ever
All eventless, like grey weather,
All my youth has passed me by.

Poem, 1850. Song Out of Darkness: Seleted Poems (Mitre Press, 1961), p. 95