Wait for me, and I will return.
Only truly wait.
Wait while bringing sorrow
The autumn rains come late.
Wait while snow is blowing,
Wait while heat burns haze,
Wait while others cease to wait,
Forgetting yesterdays.
Wait when letters cease to come
From places far away,
Wait, while others tire of waiting
Together day after day.
Wait for me, and I will return.
Wish no good to those you've met
Who tell you, without thinking,
That it is time to forget.
Let my son and mother believe
That I have met my doom,
Let my friends all quit their hopes,
In the fire-lit gloom
Let them drink their bitter wine,
In memoriam...
Wait. Oh, do not hasten
To sit and drink with them.
Wait for me, and I will return,
Despite all death can do.
Let those who didn't wait for me
Say "Just lucky he came through."
Those who didn't wait can't know
How, while battle blazed,
Just by waiting for your own
Me you truly saved.
We will know how I survived
Only just us two:
Simply, you knew how to wait
As no one else could do.
In Sarajevo houses are burning,
Blood flows in streams from the gates.
There the peaceful Ukrainian force
Stands among wrathful brothers.
Lightblue berets, like flax,
Armored vests, as if shirts of mail.
This is the Ukrainian battalion,
These are boys from the valleys of the Dnepr and Buh.
Mourning mothers approach,
Orphans reach out their hands,
And the Bogatyry spread out
Bread on the tables of despair.
Goodness knows no obstacle.
It is not lost in the fires.
This is the Ukrainian battalion,
These are soldiers of righteousness:
People ask: "Whence came
These youths in the fiery wilderness;
Where are their mothers, what is the land
That gave them such seeing hearts?"
There plays the foliage of graycrowned trees,
There stars ring out and waters sound:
This Ukrainian battlion,
Sons of a resurrected freedom!
Whether you are Galician or Volhynian,
Or a son of the Haydamak steppes,
On your cap you bear the mark of Volodymyr,
And in your heart, of Sirka and Mazeppa.
Your land stretches from the Syan to the Don.
Where your fathers sleep in their graves,
The shame still burning on their bodies--
The Muscovite chains rusting.
Whether you are from the Black Sea or the Polissiya,
Or you are a son of the Carpathian peaks,
You now take arms so that the foreigners
Will never again take a lash to your homeland.
No one hears us, no one helps us.
We will forget to cry. We pray, in desperation,
As you gave us the will, so give us arms, O God,
And strike us dead, before we return to slavery.
Let them wonder, the secret enemies who surround us,
Covetously dreaming of golden grain.
They will not rule over Ukrainian fields,
The Dnepr will not gaze upon Odessan slaves.
Don't fear, o mothers! We will not fall to our knees,
Nor give up our swords, which are the Lord's gift.
Ukraine will not be the handmaiden of Moscow,
But will for all time herself be sovereign.
As Volodya died in the hospital
The sorrowing sky turned achingly blue,
And the lilies of the valley became grey
In the azure vales of the Prypat.
But there were no wounds, no burns, no pain,
Not even tears at the deathly doses of iodine:
Only a languid weakness never known before,
And a limpid wonder in the brown eyes.
All that was heard was the mute, quiet heart growing fainter,
The whispers of the doctors, speaking of leucocytes,
And the prayers of his mother, pleading, hoping,
That her blood might flow into her son.
Choking on the atomic abyss,
Grey night trembles like a cranberry bush.
As Volodya died in the hospital,
And sailed away to the green and golden West...
| Kipling | Millay | Frost | Chesterton | Nash | Various | Rohan | Nathan |
| Bashô | Hopkins | Chinese | Burns | Slavic | Igor | Sappho | Wolfe |
| Ridges | Walden | Pine | Black Oak | Little Pine | Chestnut | Haw |
| Greenbelt | Emory Valley | Pellissippi | Key Springs | Snapping Turtle Pond |