Native pictures
Якуб КоласВедах беларускіх
Translated by Vera rich
Pictures beloved of my native country,
You are my gladness, my pain,
What can it be lures my heart to your bounty?
What binds me so with its chain
To you, my low hills, set among native tillage,
Rivers and forests and mounds?
Sorrow pervades you, misfortuned grief fills you,
Sorrowful beauty abounds.
Whenever I lay myself down, close my eyelids,
I see you there, clear to my gaze,
Softly, like living forms, you come, beguiling,
With a fair beauty ablaze.
I hear the ripe harvest in glad conversation,
The quiet complaint of the leas,
The happy drone of tall woods’ murmuration,
The song of the mighty oak-trees.
Pictures beloved, O pictures of yearning,
Tillage and folk, own and dear,
Songs slowly languid, songs deep with mourning!..
I see you and hearken you here.