To Kurdish brother

The mountains are crying, drenched with blood,
Shot down stars are falling:
On the patches of valley, are wounded and buried,
Hungry chauvinism rushes in.
Oh, kurd, save your bullets,
But don't spare the life of murderers.
On bastards of tyranny and death
Like bloody whirlwind fall down, like a tempest.
Only let the bullets talk to them:
Not just for your possession did they come,
To take your name and language they came.
And leave your son to be an orphan.
With the oppressor you can not live in consent
He will "rule" and you will pull the cart.
They get fat from the blood of people they resent.
Chauvinism is our worst enemy by far.
He betrothed treachery with shame,
He will do anything, so you will submit to him.
Oh, kurd, save your bullets-
Without them you won't save your kin,
Do not put to sleep the power of hate,
Then, as a motto, you will take the kindness,
As soon as will fall into a gaping grave
The last chauvinist on the planet Earth.

--- Vasyl Symonenko

The Testament

Dig my grave and raise my barrow
By the Dnieper-side
In Ukraina, my own land,
A fair land and wide.
I will lie and watch the cornfields,
Listen through the years
To the river voices roaring,
Roaring in my ears.

When I hear the call
Of the racing flood,
Loud with hated blood,
I will leave them all,
Fields and hills; and force my way
Right up to the Throne
Where God sits alone;
Clasp His feet and pray…
But till that day
What is God to me?

Bury me, be done with me,
Rise and break your chain,
Water your new liberty
With blood for rain.
Then, in the mighty family
Of all men that are free,
May be sometimes, very softly
You will speak of me?

— Taras Shevchenko

Translated by E. L. Voynich, London, 1911