The end of Shevchenko’s life was approaching. In the autumn of 1860
he became conscious of the fact that his health would not allow him
to carry out his dreams of marrying, having a family, and living in a
little home on the bank of the Dniper in Ukraine. He expressed this
feeling in his poem _The years of youth are passed away_, written on
October 19, and soon after he consulted a physician because of his
difficulty in breathing. His friends could not realize his condition
but he failed rapidly and during January, 1861, he was able to do
little work. He finished his last poem, _Is it not time for us to
stop?_ on February 25. It was the end for early the next morning, the
day after his birthday, his eyes closed forever.
+The years of youth are passed away+
The years of youth are passed away ...
A chilling blast has swept upon me
From hope.
The winter’s on its way.
So sit alone in your cold home
With no one there to hear your word,
With no one to receive your thought,
No one at all, no one at all!
Sit there alone, until hope fools
The fool himself and mocks him well
And seals with frost his lonely eyes
And scatters all his haughty thoughts,
Just as the snowflakes on the steppe.
Sit there alone in your poor home,
Wait not for spring, a holy fate!
It never will appear again
To deck your garden with its green
Or to renew your faded hope.
It will not come to set free thoughts
Again at freedom. No, sit there
And wait for not a thing at all.
+Is it not time for us to stop?+
Is it not time for us to stop,
My neighbor poor, but yet so dear,
The writing of these worthless verses
And to commence our preparations
To go upon a distant journey?
Unto that world, my friend, to God,
We’ll hurry on to take our rest....
We’re wearied now, we’ve grown so old
And somehow we have gained some sense.
That is enough!
We’ll go to sleep,
We’ll go to rest in a small cabin ...
The cabin’s cheerful, as you know!
We’ll not go, we are not going,--
Friend, it is too early!
Let us go, and let us sit
And enjoy this world.
Let us look, my humble fortune,
Think how broad it is,
How it is both broad and cheerful,
Clear and yet so deep!
Let us go, my friendly star,
And ascend the mount,
There we’ll rest ...
At that same moment
All the stars, thy sisters,
The eternal, heavenly stars,
Will swim up a-shining.
There we’ll wait, my sister dear,
Ever holy comrade,
And with chaste and pious lips
Let us pray to God.
We will start in utter quiet
On our distant journey,
O’er the bottomless and raging
Lethe we must pass.
Bless me for this, O my comrade,
With a holy glory!
But while we wait to meet the future,
We will go simply--and direct
To pay to Aesculapius
To see if he can trick old Charon
And the wise Fates who spin.
There after
While the wise grandsir is a dreaming,
We’ll stop and write a mighty epic--
And steam it well above the earth
And weave hexameters for it,
And take it to the attic
A breakfast for the mice ...
And then
We’ll sing in prose--and not by notes
And not as chance may say ...
My friend,
O sacred guide of my whole life,
Before the fire has gone out,
We’d better go to Charon now!
O’er the Lethe bottomless
With its raging waters
We will sail and carry with us
All our sacred glory,
Ever youthful and eternal ...
For--I dread it, friend!
If I have to go without it,
I’ll be very mournful,
So whether it’s on Phlegethon,
Or on the Styx in heaven,
Or on Dnipro, that mighty river,
I shall construct a little cabin
In the eternal forest there
And plant a garden round the cabin
And thou wilt come to its cool shade
And there I’ll seat thee like a queen;
We will recall Dnipro, Ukraina,
The cheerful forest villages,
The mountain tombs upon the steppes,
And we will sing a cheerful song.