Original
Загублена доля
Доля вийшла з мене моя,І пішла кудись гуляти,Від мене утікатиПо пісках, пустелях, по ярах,По болотах і лісах.
Я очі закрив, темряву побачив,І вбачав у темряві шляхи,Дозволяючі мені Долю віднайти,Долю, загублену суспільством мою.Вона утекла, як утікає вода рікою.
Translation
Lost Fate
My fate went out of meand went off somewhere to roam,to run away from methrough sands, through deserts, through ravines,through swamps and forests.
I closed my eyes and saw the dark,and in the dark I saw the waysthat would allow me to find my Fate —the Fate society had lost for me.It ran away, as water runs down a river.
About the poem
A fable in long, prose-like lines. Fate — Dolia, feminine, a figure from Ukrainian folk belief — walks out of the speaker and wanders off across sands, swamps and forests. The soul runs after her through the dark with fear at its side and comes back empty; the body does not want to live without Fate, lives anyway, “and made thought out of nothing.” Life notices “the labour of art,” loves the body for it, and gives it back its Fate as a birthday present — whereupon the body leaves Earth altogether for a dimension “where dreaminess remained the main thing.” Art rewarded, society escaped: the key to the whole middle of the book.