Alexander Tvardovsky
To you, Ukraine

What numerous crops have arised at the borders,
How ear to ear they stand strong and tall.
How fresh is the smell of the harvest enormous,
It's lit by the sunrise — Go breathe in it all.

Take a deep breath, look around and you'll see it
How free to the sky outstretches this land.
The fields full of gold and the forests, so be it —
The bright water meadows and fields with no end.

How peaceful are huts painted white to the ground,
The bench at the gate — sit and rest, weary men!
How rich and how fertile is soil around,
How fruitful the year here could have been then.

To this golden land and its valleys, it's mountains,
Factories, villages, meadows and crops:
In harshest of times and in darkest of hours
You will be cherished until our hearts stop.

It's almost if I have been born in Ukraine here,
And trampled this white dust since I was a child,
And learned how to speak and sing songs, and remained here
And felt my beloved's caress as she smiled.

And maybe I'm native to different places,
And there we have different herbs in the bloom,
But in the expanses of plains and of raises
I now see my childhood spark in the gloom.

Along with your sons I devote whole and fully
My blood and my breath to you, mother Ukraine.
We're not just defending a land from the bullies,
We're serving the motherland of all domains.

Translated by unknown author