In an inhuman game,

in an unnatural cause,

With chains of paraments cast up and down,

The imperious muscle swelled with heavy torus,

Embracing the edges

of a calm abyss.

It brought up skyward,

like a coveted cup,

A wide gate,

The wide gate – sinful and earthly,

Like a round ring on a burly hand.

And the creative spirit,

untiring,

uncooling,

Placed bundles of sightly herbs upon the stone,

Like breasts of maidens,

ardent and unclean,

In plays of a lustful imagination.

It threw so lavishly a spotty truss,

Like habitual lover thrown on a bed

That know loving sweat,

the qualms of heavy intercourse,

And sated sleep,

and morning appetite.

Upon the truss is blossom,

blossom like an eye

Of a male aroused by a female

From those centuries,

when hearts

Drank the passion of the lewd Baroque

That flew from the ancient maze of ages,

That banded from afar

Dense branches of Ukrainian gates

With alleviated Corinthian acanthus.

And the acanthus – not laurels

on a regal brow,

So those gates had never been wide open

To let in prisoners from

conquered states,

For the path of victory had never led through those gates.

The gate is for subdued and violent passion

Of elder centuries.

Clad in scarlet,

In those days, the proud hetmanate

Erected its gilded belfries

like rich bunchuks.

In those days, Mazepa placed his churches

Upon the greasy hair of the steppes

Like a ringing crown.

Mazepa the poet,

and the hetman,

and the trader,

He lost the desperate game,

And his white horse

Learned to flee, a stableless Pegasus,

A tailless Bucephalus

of modern hetmanlings.

Oh, drive away that horse,

may its gallop cease!

Break the shadows of the belfries

like a rusted spear!

And the peal of bells grows quiet

under the vaulted arch,

For our heart is larger than their one!