Original
Визначення
Коли повіриш ти у те,Що зло до тебе прийде,Воно звичайно і прийде,Й тобі нещастя принесе.
Коли ж без сумнівів будеш,Ти вірити лиш у добро,Тоді буде звичайно,На світі жить приємно.
Коли будеш ти сумніватись,Не знаючи, чого собі бажати,То буде нікуди діватись,Коли прийдуть тебе забрати.
Translation
Definition
When you believe it to be truethat evil's on its way to you,it will, of course, arrive —and bring you misfortune.
But when, without a doubt,you believe in good alone,then, of course, it will bepleasant to live in the world.
When you are full of doubt,not knowing what to wish for,there'll be nowhere to hidewhen they come to take you.
About the poem
Five quatrains of moral logic. Believe that evil will come, and it comes; believe “without doubt” only in good, and life will be pleasant; doubt, not knowing what to wish for, and “there will be nowhere to go when they come to take you.” Two destinations follow, light and dark, in the plainest terms. The title is the argument: what you believe defines where you end up. The poem’s confidence is its youth and its charm. The poem reads like a set of axioms, but its real subject is attention. Expectation shapes what the speaker notices, and doubt fragments desire until nothing can be pursued cleanly. The moral is less supernatural than psychological: the mind participates in the world it experiences.