Lina Kostenko. The poem "Words terrify when they remain not spoken" (video), translated from Ukrainian into English by Ivan Doan (Ліна Костенко. "Страшні слова, коли вони мовчать")

Words terrify when they remain not spoken,

When suddenly, they tuck themselves away,

When you don’t known how silence can be broken,

For someone else has said all you might say.

These words were once pronounced in tears or pain,

They were the dawn yet also the cessation,

Billions of men, and words, like drops of rain,

For the first time now, they are your creation.

Both beauty and ill will have had their fame,

There have been weeds and roads beneath our sole,

But poetry will never be the same,

It will forever touch the human soul.