This was written during Franko's second year at the university and in it appear the ideas which were repeated and expanded in later years. A son of the soil himself, the poet feels and understands better than anyone else the unenviabic lot of the Ukrainian peasant economically and politically, but he also perceives the sources of survival that lie in the peasant's character and past history. On the basis of this he can foresee eventual victory and liberation. It is a fine expression of the poet's social consciousness and solidarity with the oppressed, the socialism for which he was arbitrarily thrown into prison a year later.

THE HIRED HAND

He sings a mournful song, his hands upon the plough—

    Hard labor on the soil
And want and strain have scored their furrows on his brow.

    'Tis thus I see him toil.
In soul he's still a child although his head hangs down

    Like greybeard's, old and weak,
For from the cradle he has lived 'neath fortune's frown,

    His life but labor bleak.
Where'er his ploughshare passes, it turns the fertile earth

    Upon the rolling field,
Which speedily will bring the waving rye to birth,

    The soil its fruit will yield.
Why is he in a shirt of coarsest linen dressed,

    Stuff of the poorest brand ?
Why doth he like a beggar wear a tattered vest?

    He's but a hired hand!
Born as a serving man, once magnified as free

    By heroes of his folk,
In wretchedness with no escape, in misery,

    He bows beneath the yoke.
To live, his life, his liberty, his strength he sells

    Just for a crust of bread,
Which adds naught to his strength and scarce

    his hunger quells
Nor straightens up his head.
He dumbly suffers as with mournful song he ploughs

    A field which others reap.
His song's a friend to him, a friend which ne'er allows

    Him all alone to weep.

His song's refreshing dew which a hot summer day,
    Revives half-withered flowers.

His song is awful thunder which rolls on far away

    While here che siorm cloud lowers.
He bends and walts with longing when tempests

         storm above
    Until their rage is done.
He loves the sacred soil as sons their mothers love,

    As mother loves her son.
He cares not though his toil to alien hands may flow

    And ne'er to him belong.
He cares not though the fruit of bloody sweat may go

    To make his masters strong.
Let him but see the earth which his hands cultivate

    A harvest bring to birth,

Though 'twill not be his hands that shall appropriate
    God's blessing on the earth.

That hired hand's our folk which spends its sweat

         in streams
    In toil on other's fields.
Though mocked and scorned by fate, it lives by

        childlike dreams,
    With heart that never yields.
A better lot it waits throughout long centuries,

    And still it waits in vain,
Surviving devastation, Tatar miseries,

    And serfdom's toil and pain.
For in that heart, howe'er a bitter fate may mock,

    Eternal hope still dwells,
As oftentimes from out a cliff of granite rock

    A living fountain wells;
As in a golden haze, a magic fairy tale,

    It sees its future gleam,

And day by day endures its gloomy, sore travail
    Through one unending dream.

It has been saved alone beneath oppression's frown

    By love unto the soil;
Though oftentimes its children have been beaten down,

    Yet always they recoil.
That love of theirs is like the old-time man of might,

    Unconquered son of earth,
Who, though o'erwhelmed, cast down, yet from the earth

        to fight,
    Rose ever in rebirth.
Thus, caring not for whom, still singing, on they go

    To plough the fertile soil,

Not caring that their lords, indifferent to their woe,
    Still revel on their toil.

Plough on, plough on, O giant, though in chains

    Of ignorance and toil!
Thy chains shall some day fall, the evil that remains

    No more shall thee despoil!
E'en when by foes o'erwhelmed. not vainly hast thou sung

    The spirit's moral power;
Not vain have been the tales told in thy people's tongue

    Of victory's coming hour.
Thou shalt o'ercome in time the crusted ills of yore—

    Then on thine own freed soil.
Thou shalt as owner plough, and so shalt be once more

    The master of thy toil.
1876