Taras Shevchenko

“ To whom the people give fame unbounded?
In trousers of velvet red,
With a coat that sweeps the road
A cossack comes. Let's weep o'er his years
For what they've done is cause for tears.
But there's life in the old man yet I trust,
For with dancing kicks
he spurns the dust.
In his short time left with men to mingle
The cossack sings,
this tipsy jingle.
"On the road is a crab, crab, crab. ”

“ It happened sometimes, when a cossack warrior found his energies failing and his joints growing stiff from much campaigning, he would bethink him of his sins and deeds of blood.
These things weighing on his mind, he would decide to spend the remainder of his life in a monastery, but before taking this irrevocable step, he would hold a time of high revel with his old comrades. ”