Dumka

Translated by Clarence A. Manning

What does my black hair avail me,
Or my black eyes, sparkling,
What do youthful years avail me
Cheerful and a maiden’s?
All my youthful years are passing,
Passing to no purpose,
And my eyes are weeping meanwhile
Winds turn pale my tresses.
My heart sinks, it shuns the daylight,
As imprisoned birdlet.
What avails me all my beauty,
If I've no good fortune?
It is hard for me, an orphan,
To live on hereafter,
All my people are as strangers —
I have none to talk with;
I have no one to ask questions
Why my eyes are weeping.
I have no one to tell freely
What my heart is wishing,
Why my heart, just as a dovelet
Day and night is mourning.
No one wishes to ask of it,
Knows it not nor hears it.
Strangers will not ask me of it —
Why should it concern them?
Let the orphan go on weeping,
Let her waste her hours!
Weep, my heart! My eyes, keep weeping,
Till you close forever,
Cry aloud, complain unceasing
For the winds to listen,
And take all my lamentations
Far across the blue sea,
To the false and black haired lover,
To his bitter sorrow!

                         1838, St. Petersburg