It Doesn’t Touch Me…

Taras Shevchenko

 (Translated by Vera Rich, 1961)

It does not touch me, not a whit

If I live in Ukraine or no,

If men recall me, or forget,

Lost as I am, in foreign snow, -

Touches me not the slightest whit.

Captive, to manhood I have grown

In strangers’ homes, and by my own

Unmourned, a weeping captive still,

I’ll die, all that is mine, I will

Bear off; let not a trace remain

In our glorious Ukraine.

Our own land – yet a strangers’ rather.

And speaking with his son, no father

Will recall, nor bit him: Pray,

Pray, son! Of old, for our Ukraine,

They tortured all his life away.

It does not touch me, not a whit,

Whether that son will pray or no…

But it does touch me deep if knave,

Evil rogues lull our Ukraine

Asleep, and only in the flames

Let her, all plundered, wake again…

That touches me with deepest pain.