Original
Хто ?
Як чайка літає над морем,Як вітер шелестить листям дерев,Як височіють мальовничі гори,Як над звірами лев.
Як приємно-легкий і красивий,Як пронизливий і всемісткий,Як могутній і щасливий,Як найвищий, коли низький.
Як сонце після дощу затяжного,Як дощ після посухи,Як в темному лісі дорога,Як для безрукого руки.
Translation
Who?
As the seagull flies above the sea,as the wind rustles the leaves of the trees,as the picturesque mountains rise high,as the lion above the beasts.
As pleasantly light and beautiful,as piercing and all-containing,as mighty and happy,as the highest, when lowly.
As the sun after a long rain,as rain after a drought,as a road in a dark forest,as hands for one without hands.
About the poem
Love as Truth opens with a riddle in similes. Like a gull over the sea, like wind in the leaves, like mountains, like the lion over the beasts; “pleasant-light and beautiful,” “piercing and all-containing,” “highest when low”; like sun after long rain and rain after drought, “like hands for the armless”; like boundless space, like a sea with no bottom, like the ideal, like perfection — “like the One for Whom I am for ever.” No subject is named until the capital letter of the last line. The title asks the question; the poem’s four quatrains are the answer, withheld until it can no longer be anything else.