86
THE KOBZAR OF THE UKRAINE
II.
Did you but study as you should,
You would possess your own wisdom;
And you might creep up to heaven.
But it is we—
Oh, no, not we;
It is I—no, no, not I.
I've seen it all, I know it.
There's neither heaven nor hell,
Not even God—
Just I and the short, fat German,
Nothing more.
Grand, my brother.
You ask me something,
"I don't know,
Ask the German,
He'll tell you."
That's the way you learn
in foreign lands.
The German says—
"You are Mongols.
Mongols, Mongols;
Naked children
of the golden Tamerlane."
The German says—
"You are Slavs,
Slavs, Slavs;
