Taras Shevchenko

What is is about powerful rivers that inspire and provoke poets, literary artists and painters to portray them?  Check out "The Mighty Dnieper" written below by the poet  Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), who could be considered the Ukrainian version of  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

                         
                                 The Mighty Dnieper

The mighty Dnieper roars and bellows,
The wind in anger howls and raves,
Down to the ground it bends the willows,
And mountain-high lifts up the waves. 

The pale-faced moon picked out this moment
To peek out from behind a cloud,
Like a canoe upon the ocean
It first tips up, and then dips down. 

The cocks don't crow to wake the morning,
There's not as yet a sound of man,
The owls in glades call out their warnings,
And ash trees creak and creak again. 

Mark Twain  (1835-1910) was also influenced by the mighty Mississippi River. In the text below he reflects on how he lost his appreciation for the beauty of the river and wonders if others similarly lose their sense and appreciation for beauty: 

"No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?"

Thank you, Mr. Shevchenko and Mr. Twain. Thanks to you both, I now very much want to see the Dnieper River and the Mississippi River for myself.