Original
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Тобі дарую навесні,Я білосніжні квіти ці,Щоб ти як ніжні квіти ці,Завжди коханою була мені.
Щоб ти не плакала, не сумувала,Лиш все прекрасне собі брала,Й назад добром лиш віддавала,Щоб ти росла як той цвіток.
Як я поскачу назорі,На білому, чи чорному коні,Щоб ти мене не зупиняла,А тільки ручкой помахала.
Translation
Congratulations
In spring I give to youthese flowers, white as snow,so that, like these tender flowers, youwould always be my beloved.
So that you'd never weep, nor grieve,but take for yourself only what's lovely,and give back nothing but good,and grow the way that flower grows.
And when I gallop off at dawnon a white horse, or on a black,don't try to stop me — only waveyour little hand to me.
About the poem
A Russian title on a Ukrainian gift-poem. White spring flowers are offered with wishes — that she never weep, that she grow “like that blossom” — and with a folk-song scene: when he rides off at dawn “on a white or a black horse,” she is not to stop him, only wave. The flowers are to be pressed in “a huge book” and, years later, found again: thyme, remembered “with no unkind word.” Love that already imagines its own memory. Because the poem is a gift, its imagery is intentionally generous rather than conflicted. Flowers, tears, song and spring become wishes placed around another person. Beneath the conventional blessing is a young poet’s instinct to preserve affection by turning it into ceremony.