{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_72903/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_72903","id":"gutenberg_72903","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72903","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","Folk songs, Ukrainian -- Translations into English","Ukrainian poetry -- Translations into English"],"text":"SONGS OF UKRAINA\n\n\n\n\n _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n SONGS\n _of_\n UKRAINA\n WITH RUTHENIAN POEMS\n\n\n TRANSLATED BY\n\n FLORENCE RANDAL LIVESAY\n\n[Illustration: [Logo]]\n\n LONDON, PARIS & TORONTO\n J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED\n NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.\n MCMXVI\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n\n PAGAN SONGS\u2014 PAGE\n Kupalo (Fragment) 21\n Song to Vesnianka (Fragment) 23\n Vesnianka\u2014Children\u2019s Song 23\n Hyeevka\u2014Song of the Woods 24\n\n WEDDING SONG CYCLE\u2014\n The Wedding of Marusenka (I-XIII) 25\n\n WEDDING SONGS\u2014\n Song of Departure\u2014A Bride of Bukovina 36\n Unplaiting the Hair 37\n The Bride\u2019s Song 38\n The Bride 39\n The Day before the Wedding 40\n\n HISTORICAL SONGS\u2014\n Pan Kanovsky\u2014Song of Feudalism 42\n Marusya Bohuslavka (Duma) 44\n Akhmet III. and the Zaporogians 47\n Before Poltava 49\n Time of Tartar Invasion (Fragment) 52\n The Song of Bida 52\n\n COSSACK SONGS\u2014\n Cossack Marching Song 55\n Charge of the Cossacks 56\n The Young Recruits 57\n Mother and Son 58\n The Captives 60\n Cossack Marching Song 62\n Song of Victory\u20141648 63\n In Turkish Captivity 65\n Lament for Morozenko 67\n\n ROBBER SONGS\u2014\n The Death of Dobush 69\n Song of the Oprishki (Outlaws) 74\n The Haidamaky\u2014\u201cKnights of Vengeance\u201d 75\n Song of Karmel\u016bk 76\n\n TCHUMAK SONGS\u2014\n Khustina\u2014The Betrothal Kerchief (Shevchenko) 78\n The Penniless Tchumak 81\n\n RHYTHMS\u2014\n Mother and Daughter 83\n Burial of the Soldier 85\n The Drunkard 86\n Song of the Orphan 87\n The Gift of a Ring 89\n\n FOLK SONGS\u2014\n \u201cMy Field, My Field\u201d (Fragment) 90\n Song of the Cossack 91\n I walked along the River Bank 92\n Orphan Song 93\n Song of Unhappy Woman 93\n A Girl\u2019s Song 94\n O Wild Horses 95\n The Daughter of the Witch (Variant) 96\n Song of Vdov\u00e0\u2014The Widow 98\n The Two Lovers (Fragment) 99\n The Broken Engagement 99\n The Distant Sweetheart 100\n The Enchantress 101\n The Dying Soldier 102\n The Orphan\u2019s Wedding 104\n Moonlight 106\n On the Steppes 107\n In the Garden beside the Water 109\n Unrequited Love 110\n The Oak 110\n Night on the Road 112\n Song of the Dance 113\n Pigeons\u2014The Lovers 114\n Song from an Opera 115\n The Maid to her Laggard Lover 116\n The Tramp at the Inn 116\n Little Petrus 118\n Songs of the Poppy Harvest 119\n Here is a Hill 120\n \u201cGirl o\u2019 Mine\u201d (Variant) 123\n Yakimy 124\n Grass rustling in the Breeze 126\n Playing on the Flute was Ivan 128\n The Kalina 130\n As the Cherry glows in the Garden 131\n In the Fields grows the Rye 132\n Mela, farewell 133\n \u201cKazhut Ludy\u201d 136\n By Dunai\u2019s Waters 137\n \u201cI was born in a Fated Hour\u201d 138\n The Song of the Visits 140\n \u201cWasylki\u201d\u2014Song of the Dance 141\n Kalina\u2014The Cranberry 143\n\n OTHER POEMS\u2014\n Thoughts from a Prison (Shevchenko) 147\n Topolia\u2014The Poplar (Shevchenko) 148\n Song from Exile (Rudansky) 156\n The Ring (Vorobkievich) 158\n\n POEMS BY FEDKOVICH\u2014\n Where Luck Lies 160\n The Flute 161\n Two Etchings: I. Holy Eve 164\n II. In Church 164\n The Recruit 165\n The Handkerchief 167\n Before Kastenedola 168\n To M. D. 170\n\n UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM 172\n\n\n\n\n SONGS OF UKRAINA\n\n\nUkrainian Song.... But do you know what the Ukraine is?\n\nWhere in Spring the warm wind breathes, bearing on its wings from\n\u201cEarey\u201d (Egypt) the myriads of grouse and other birds, and into the\nhearts of the people the paean of love; where the woods are carpeted\nwith blue \u201cprolisoks\u201d and red \u201criast\u201d; where Vesnianka, the \u201cLada\u201d of\nSpring, with the assistance of vovkoolaks and spirits of the woods, is\nrunning through the forest scattering bloom, her song echoing over the\nwhole country; where the sun is so bright and gay; where the willow tree\nin full blossom looks like a great yellow stack, orchards are white with\ncherry; where millions of nightingales sing all the night long\u2014where\nPetrus so truly loves Natalka\u2014\n\n _There is the Ukraine._\n\nWhere in the Summer the Dnieper is carrying down its broad yellow waters\nto empty them into the bluish waves of the Black Sea; and upon the\nsteeps of its mountainous right bank, like pyramids, the ancestral\ngrave-hills stand, looking over the endless plains golden with ripening\nrye; where the little white huts of the villagers hide themselves in the\ngreen orchards of scarlet apples, yellow pears, purple prunes, musical\nwith the humming of bees; where, beside a broad road, under a willow\ntree, a blind lirnik-beggar sits, singing a song of the vanished\nfreedom; where the \u201cgrandsons\u201d of that freedom mow the lush grass, with\ntheir scythes glistening in the hot sun, just as the sabres of their\ngrandfathers flashed on the same field\u2014\n\n _There is the Ukraine._\n\nWhere in Autumn in the wood on the peaceful bank of a Dunai the hopvine\nwith its gold and bronze covers the bared branches of ash trees; where\non cranberry bushes the red bunches burn in the rays of the Autumn sun\nlike a circlet of rubies; where Marusina walks in the wood picking the\nberries and calling upon her fated one in her songs; where in the\nfields, now umber-coloured, the herds of cattle graze; where the poplar\nrustles sadly with her leaves yet green over a lonesome grave\u2014as a\nmaiden deserted by her lover; where, when the leaves fall, the\nnight-heaven is so darkly blue and the stars so bright\u2014\n\n _This is Ukraina._\n\nWhere in Winter Witch-Marina with snow white as swansdown covers the\nfields, making of them an endless white sea; where Frost-Moroze with its\nmagic power changes fog into rime and sleet, transforms the forests into\nsilver coral jungles of the undersea kingdom; where in gayety the people\nknow how to spend the whole winter season, entertained by folk-drama;\nwhere hymns to the pagan goddess Lada are heard at Christmas;\n\nWhere the red foxes, seeking refuge in tall \u201cocherets,\u201d or bulrushes,\nand hares lying in utter stillness on the hillocks, shall hear the\nstamping of horses\u2019 hoofs, the baying of hounds and the sudden clamour\nof the horn\u2014\n\n _There is Ukraina._\n\nWhere on the summits of the Carpathians old oaks and pines murmur, and\nthe native Hutzul in white embroidered shirt and red breeches plays on\nhis trimbeeta amid his grazing flocks in the mountain meadow; where on a\ndark night thunder roars and the lightning plays on the white breasts of\nbeech-trees; where Dobush sleeps with his robber Oprishki, in a rocky\ncave under the Chorna-Hora, waiting for the summons to arise once more\nagainst the enemies of the Ukraine\u2014\n\n _There is the Highland of the Ukrainian._\n\nWhere the southern prairies meet the waves of the Black Sea, and grey\neagles circle in the heavens watching the numberless herds of sheep;\nwhere the Dnieper\u2019s cataracts roar, dashing down to the Khortitsa\nIsland, asking it: \u201cWhere are the banners of the hetmans and the cannons\nof old?\u201d There, where a black cloud covers heaven from Lyman, the Mount\nof the Dnieper, in the semblance of the dragon of the fairy tales\u2014\n\n _There are the Zaporogian Steppes._\n\n\nAnd the ages passed over the Ukraine.... \u201cIn the beginning\u201d black-haired\nScythians came from Ariastan to the Ukraine with their herds\u2014later, the\nrace was crossed with blue-eyed, white-haired Finns; both disappeared\nand the tall, dark brown-eyed, fair-haired Ukrainian arose, the\nbeneficent gods Yoor and Lada nursing him in his cradle.\n\nMongolians came from Asia, and Ghingiz-Khan built his pyramids of men\u2019s\nskulls.... And on the Steppes, on the Kalka river the brave Russichi\nbarred the way to the Polovets, with scarlet shields, and all fell for\nthe motherland. Still, the Mongolian waves rolling over the Ukrainian\nrock were unable to devastate Europe. The Khan turned back, civilisation\nwas saved, but the Ukraine was covered with corpses, on whose bones\nCossacks arose who again checked the Tartars. There in the Ukraine was\nFreedom personified by the Zaporogian Cossack, in blue zhupan and red\nbreeches, mounted on his grey horse.\n\nSeven feet deep is the black soil of Ukraina, bringing forth from one\nseed one hundred and twenty fold. Poles, Turks, and Muscovites began to\npress forward, eager to grasp the land flowing with milk and honey and\nbind her as a captive. Long centuries the sabre of the Cossack flashed\nbeheading invaders from all parts of the world. At last it was shivered\nand broken!\n\n\nNow naught is left of Ukraina save her songs\u2014but in that song she still\nlives, engraved in the heart of the people. Let it be sung, and before\nyour eyes you shall resurrect the dead centuries.\n\nThe Ukrainians sing their Kolady, Vesnianky, Kupalni\u2014and the ancient\ngods of the Sun and Thunder are again alive, adversaries of\nChristianity.\n\nThe bride-maidens sing the wedding songs, and ancient days come back\nwhen a wild youth gathered a band of the boys of his tribe and raided\nanother village to kidnap a maiden. All her relatives rose to defend\nher, and sometimes only after a bloody fight did the bridegroom carry\nhis bride safely home. A thousand years passed, and only song was left\nto show that such barbarous days had ever been.\n\nIn the troublous days that followed, when the Cossacks ringed Ukraina\nwith the terrible circle of their sabres, they sang of Freedom; and even\nnow those songs will stir a man\u2019s blood and make him long to leap on a\nhorse and gallop over the broad steppes, \u201cswift to the fields of\nFreedom.\u201d\n\nMoscow, Tartary, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey\u2014what neighbours!\u2014the Hetmans,\nwars and revolutions\u2014at length the fall of Seech, the last stand of\nUkrainian freedom\u2014the whole Ukrainian history was put into song by the\nKobzars, the rhapsodists, and if the Ukraine has lost her written\nhistory it is still preserved in her historical songs.\n\nThe period of bondage and feudalism began in 1771. The Cossacks had\ndisappeared, but their place was taken by the avengers of the people\u2019s\nsorrows\u2014Robbers, Haidomaki, Oprishki\u2014the Ukrainian Robin Hoods\u2014and\ntheir deeds also are recorded in their songs. The bitter fate of the\nfeudal slave sighs in the song of the Ukrainian woman\u2014before, a free\nCossachka, now the slave of her husband, with no rights of her own.\nFull of self-pity and sorrow are the \u201cSongs of Unhappy Women.\u201d The\nsons of Cossacks became Tchumaks and tramps; they wrote their songs on\ntheir broken hearts.... But eternal song, that of love, of the\nnightingale\u2019s voice, and the cherry blossom, is the same\neverywhere\u2014unchangeable\u2014young, charming, immortal!\n\nItalian songs are glorious, but the singing of the Ukrainian is also a\nprecious pearl in the common treasury of mankind. It was born out of the\nbeauty of the Ukraine, and it is beautiful; it was born on the steppes,\nand as the steppes it is wide; it was born in battles, and it is free;\nit was born of the tear of a lonesome girl, and it rends the heart; it\nwas born of the thoughts of the Kobzars and its harmonies are pregnant\nwith thoughts\u2014\n\n _This is Ukrainian Song._\n\n PAUL CRATH.\n\n\n\n\n NOTE BY TRANSLATOR\n\n\nThe Songs, alas! must lack their native music; of the land which evoked\nthem Mr. Paul Crath has written with a poet\u2019s pen. It remains for me\njust to say a few words about the people who sing the songs and (with\none digression) I will quote a few extracts from French and Ukrainian\nessayists:\u2014\n\n\n \u201cThe Ukrainian is a race purely Slav, gay, chivalrous, made thoughtful\n by its own steppes\u2014a race of poets, musicians, artists who have fixed\n for all time their national history in the songs of the people which\n no centuries of oppression could silence. The singers\u2014the\n Kobzars\u2014accompany themselves on the kobza while they sing the glories\n of the Ukraine. All art with them is national, from the building of\n their tiny huts to the embroideries which adorn their clothes and\n which are distinguished for their originality all over the East.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cHere is a people, one of the most numerous of Europe and nevertheless\n one of the least known. They have not even an assured name. They are\n called Little Russians to distinguish them from the mass of the\n Russian people\u2014they are called Ukrainian because they inhabit the\n frontier between Poland and Russia; one of the branches (in Austrian\n Galicia) bears the name of Ruthenian.... In the nineteenth century\n this oppressed people revealed to the world the puissance of its\n artistic gifts. The Ukrainians became the first singers of Europe; the\n celebrated Russian music is the music of the Ukraine, and it is an\n Ukrainian, Gogol, who has opened the way to the Russian romancers of\n genius.\u201d\u2014CHARLES SEIGNOBOS, Professor at the Sorbonne.\n\n\n \u201cIn the Russian Ukraine the nobles, descendants of the line of the\n Cossacks, and the clergy had closely guarded the remembrance of the\n grandeur, the glory, and the independence of the Ukraine. Living in\n contact with a people which had preserved its language, songs, and\n customs, they turned to it to know it better.... Collections of\n popular songs by Maximovich, Dragomanov, Shesnevsky, Zerteleff, etc.,\n began to be made around 1820 and in the second half of the nineteenth\n century. Soon romantic poets found this field\u2014Kvitka outstripped\n George Sand and Auerbach.... Towards 1840 the great poet Shevchenko\n (1814\u20131861) combined by his genius all that was most profound in\n universal poetry with the genre of the popular poetry of the Ukraine.\n A great poet and a great citizen, his name is sacred to all\n Ukrainians.\u201d\n\n\nMrs. E. L. Voynich has published six lyrics from the mass of this poet\u2019s\nwork, all of which is practically unknown to English readers. Many of\nhis writings, however, are to be included in the \u201cSlavonic Classics\u201d now\nunder way.\n\n\nImmigrants, self-exiled, still sing, putting trivial incidents or\ndreadful affrays, happenings in their old villages, into legend and\nsong. From several of these living in Winnipeg I obtained old ballads\nand folk-songs set to minor airs. Russalka on ironing days was a concert\nin herself! I remember how she told me the song made by a local poet in\nher old home when a faithless bride was murdered by her conscript lover.\nAnastasia could not wait three years\u2014but the soldier came to her\nwedding.\n\nThis is the song:\u2014\n\n \u201cFrom the other side of the hill\n A stormy wind is blowing.\n Would that I knew what my sweetheart is doing!\n O my love, dost thou wish now to be mine?\u201d\n\n\u201cCome then\u2014for we may marry some day. But first of all thou must bring\nme next Sunday some flowers of Trezilie\u201d (poisonous herb).\n\n\u201cI have a saddle horse in my stable\u2014surely I will mount and ride to get\nthe flowers. Very hard are they to get, very long is the way to the\nforest where they grow\u2014yet shall I ride swiftly and get them for my\nlove.\u201d\n\n\u201cI went to the forest and found the Zilie between two elm trees. I\ndismounted and began to dig. Zuzula flew near and sang: \u2018Spare your\npains, young soldier, dig no more. Your sweetheart is fooling you, she\nweds another to-day.\u2019\n\n\u201cThen I rode in haste till I reached the courtyard of her home. Her\nfriends came to meet me, put my horse in the stable, gave me to eat and\ndrink, invited me to the wedding dance.\n\n\u201cI did not come down to dance and drink. I came down to say two words\nonly to my sweetheart.... With my right hand I took the hand of the\nbride; with my left I took my revolver and shot her.\u201d\n\n\n So his sweetheart fell between her dorohynki (bridesmaids), as a star\n pales between two sunrise clouds.\n\n\nSome of the poems included in this volume have appeared in _Poet Lore_\n(Boston); _Poetry_ (Chicago); _The Craftsman_ (New York); _Everyman_\n(Edinburgh); _Canada Monthly_ (London, Ontario); _University Magazine_\n(Montreal). To the publishers of these magazines my thanks are due for\npermission to reproduce the poems in question. I would like to\nacknowledge gratefully the help given me in translation by MM. Paul\nCrath, Ivan Petrushevich, and A. Malofie.\n\n FLORENCE RANDAL LIVESAY.\n\n WINNIPEG,\n _September 1916_.\n\n\n\n\n PAGAN SONGS[1]\n\n\n KUPALO[2]\n\n (FRAGMENT)\n\n I\n On Ivan-Kupalo\n Ivan was bathing.\n And he fell into the water\n On the Day of Kupalo.\n\n II\n Hai! On the Day of Ivan-Kupalo\n A beautiful maid her fortune sought.\n She plucked the flowers to make her garlands\u2014\n The Malva-flower and Lewbistok\u2014\n She strewed them on the river\u2019s breast.\n\n \u201cFloat, my wreath, with the wave\u2019s swift flowing,\n Straight to the window of my love\u2014\n Float to the heart of the one I love,\n And bring good fortune with thee!\u201d\n\n The wreath is floating,\n Carrying with it\n The heart of the maid.\n At the bend of the river,\n \u2019Tis swamped by the wave\u2014\n Kupalo, Kupalo,\n No fortune gave!\n\n That night the maiden\n Trezilie[3] sought.\n In the midnight hour\n She dug them up.\n\n She made a brew\n In the dead of night,\n And ere the dawn\n The poison drank.\n\n\n SONG TO VESNIANKA (SPRING)\n\n (FRAGMENT)\n\n O Lady Vesnianka,\n Where didst thou spend the winter?\n\n \u201cIn the forest, upon the oak,\n I was spinning the thread for a shirt.\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n O Spring, the beauty! Vesnianka!\n Fly to us with the sun.\n\n\n VESNIANKA\u2014CHILDREN\u2019S SONG\n\n Vesnianka came,\n And brought Paradise.\n All is blooming, everywhere.\n Beauty in the meadows lies,\n Joy is in the fields and air,\n In the woods is Song.\n\n Let us garlands make\n On Vesnianka\u2019s Day.\n Join hands, and in a ring\n Interweaving, let us play\n Jumping high, the while we sing\n In the woods our Song!\n\n All of beauty, life,\n Goes when winter\u2019s here.\n Bloom will perish, birds grow dumb,\n All things lovely disappear.\n But the time has not yet come\n To leave off our song.\n\n\n HYEEVKA\u2014SONG OF THE WOODS\n\n What did she bring us, the beautiful Spring?\n Fair tresses, maiden\u2019s beauty.\n A maiden\u2019s beauty is as dew in summer\n Washed in a spring, dried in an oven,\n Set on a table, wrapped in paper.\n\n Springtime! And now what is it she brings us?\n She brought us Strength, beauty of boys.\n Beauty of boys is as dew in summer\n Washed in a rain-pond, dried on a fence,\n Set on a table, wrapped in rags.\n\n\n\n\n WEDDING SONG CYCLE\n\n\n THE WEDDING OF MARUSENKA\n\n (_From various districts. A selection of folk-songs made into a song\n cycle, some being fragmentary_)\n\n\n I\n WOROTA\u2014THE GATES\n\n Marusenka with her father pleadeth:\n \u201cMy beloved father, close the gates,\n Close the gates!\n Do not let the Duke[4] come nigh\u2014\n Let not Wasylenko by.\u201d\n\n \u201cChild beloved! Nay\u2014he entreats\n That I let him in, let him in.\n Like the khmel, like the hop vines\n Round the gates, see, he twines!\n At the Table, like barw\u0113nok.... Who allowed\n Him to sit there? Proud\u2014\n Like a falcon,[5] proud!\u201d\n\n\n II\n\n The sun as a wheel now mounts the skies:\n Marusenka\u2019s ensphered by Paradise.\n\n \u201cThis Eden, O maiden, who gave to thee?\u201d\n \u201cGod and my father!\u201d sayeth she.\n\n\n III\n\n In the orchard, in the cherry orchard\n We passed but now, young Wasyl stood.\n He raised his cap in a lightsome mood.\n He raised it and listened; he thought he heard\n Song of a bird, song of a bird\u2014\n Sweet, sweet song of Zuzula[6] winging.\n But see! It was maids weaving wreaths and singing.\n\n\n IV\n THE COMING OF MEESCHANI ON SUNDAY TO THE WEDDING\n\n (_The Meeschani or Master Merchants of old held themselves in high\n esteem, looking down upon the peasants_)\n\n Let us drive\u2014we will drive across the fields;\n Drive uphill and down the dales,\n Across the sands, across the stones.\n They will hear us coming in the vales;\n The sands shall murmur, the stones shall prattle,\n As \u2019neath our horses\u2019 feet they rattle;\n We will be talked of everywhere.\n Ah, how the villagers will stare:\n \u201cSee now, Meeschani driving there!\u201d\n\n\n V\n CEREMONY OF THE WREATH-WEAVING\n\n The Kalina[7] grows in a little valley;\n It has blossomed with a white, white flower.\n The bridesmaids went to pluck a bough\n But empty-handed come they now.\n Its plucking lay not in their power.\n But there went Marusenka,\n There the little Duchess went.\n The Cranberry her blossoms lent.\n\n Home came Marusenka to the bright Room of Welcome.\n Home to the pretty maidens then came she.\n Before her little face she set the flowers,\n And she looked at them long and earnestly.\n\n Then of her father asked Marusenka:\n \u201cLike this Kalinonka shall I be?\u201d\n \u201cAs long as thou stayest by my hearth-side,\n Child, thou\u2019lt be like that Cranberry.\n\n \u201cBut when thou goest upon thy journey\n Thy beauty, alas, will fall from thee.\n O youthful one, from thy braids so golden\n Thy beauty swiftly away shall flee!\u201d\n\n\n VI\n THE WREATH\n\n Wreath, my wreath\n Of Barw\u0113nok,[8] Kryschati![9]\n I have woven you, just you alone.\n I have not worn you out with wearing;\n Saturday afternoon I wore you,\n On Sunday all the dear day long,\n On Monday just one little hour ...\n I would have you painted, that I might keep you\n To dance beneath but one night more;\n I would have you gilded, that so enwreath\u00e8d\n I might walk as in days of yore.\n\n\n VII\n BAKING THE KOROVAI[10]\n\n My Korovai, so heaven-sweet!\n Moulded with water from seven wells;\n Made out of seven stacks of wheat.\n\n And now our oven with golden shoulders,\n Our big oven with silver wings\n The festal loaf shall bake for us,\n The Korovai shall make for us.\n\n\n VIII\n\n To her little brother the Duchess cried:\n \u201cBrother, I pray thee, saddle thy horse!\n Haste to the fields that stretch so wide,\n Get for me the horses black,\n Drive them before thee on the way back.\n Then let them loose among my flowers.\n Let them browse as around they course,\n And what they eat not in my bowers\n The while they do in my garden stay\n On their clutching hoof they may carry away.\n Let the stamping feet on my flowers fall\n That none be left when I am gone;\n No joy be there for my bridesmaids all\u2014\n So lonesome Mother won\u2019t weep for me:\n \u2018There are her flowers\u2014but where is she!\u2019\u201d\n\n\n IX\n PUTTING ON THE PEREMITKA\n\n (_The enveloping hood or white scarf, the mark of the wife_)\n\n The white Pava[11] is flying\u2014\n See all the waiting ring there,\n The maids who laugh and sing there\u2014\n But all the girls it passes,\n Passes by them all\n To fall\n On Marusenka only.\n\n \u201cDecide now if thou dost regret,\n Young Marusenka,\n What thou hast done! The maids that jest,\n Of their long plaits are still possessed.\n They will not take thee back now,\n Marusenka!\u201d\n\n\n X\n SONG OF THE BRIDEGROOM\u2019S FRIENDS\n\n \u201cOpen the gates\u2014the little gates!\u201d\n \u201cWho is it calls? Who is it waits?\u201d\n \u201cAttendants of the bridegroom we\u2014\u201d\n \u201cAh, well! Now what may your gift be?\u201d\n\n \u201cWe offer you our golden bees\u2014\u201d\n \u201cThink you so small a thing would please?\n Have you naught else for offering?\u201d\n\n \u201cBehold the great gift that we bring:\n The maiden, wearing on her brow\n The Ruta-wreath,[12] comes with us now.\u201d\n\n\n XI\n DEPARTURE\n\n Clanged the keys on the table;\n Outside the horses neighed.\n \u201cO my mother, my dear mother!\u201d\n Cried the little maid.\n\n \u201c\u2019Tis all over, all over!\n No more am I free.\n So sad is it to be married!\u201d\n And she wept bitterly.\n\n \u201cSend you your dear daughter\n Far away?\u201d mourn\u00e8d she.\n \u201cBut I follow, my husband,\n Lo, I follow thee!\n\n \u201cThe man whom I wed now\n A stranger is he.\n Yet knoweth my father\n To whom he gives me!\u201d\n\n\n XII\n THE MOTHER\n\n _When the bridal party is going to the bridegroom\u2019s house_\n\n As it came to the dawning I awoke:\n Swift I looked in the Courtyard grey\u2014\n There but now her fine sleigh stayed,\n While the prancing horses neighed\n That bore my Marusenka away.\n\n \u201cAm I no more your child?\u201d she said,\n \u201cThat from your side you send me so\n Just ere the coming of the night?\n Give me a friend in this my plight\u2014\n My songster Solowi[13] must go.\n\n \u201cFor its sweet piping I would hear\n At peep of day to waken me\u2014\n She, my new mother, will not call,\n Instead, she slanders\u2014cruel words all\u2014\n \u2018Useless this bride as rotten tree!\u2019\u201d\n\n\n XIII\n\n In the green garden is fresh-fallen snow;\n Horses are galloping to and fro.\n\n A mother follows the hoof-marks deep:\n \u201cMy Marusenka, where dost thou sleep?\n\n \u201cHelp me, O Lord, her steps to trace!\n Home I would take her from this place.\n\n \u201cCome, Marusenka, come to me!\n If now ill-treated thou mayst be.\u201d\n\n She is not in her small white bed.\n She sleeps upon the straw instead.\n\n \u201cIn what straw, pray, now lieth she?\u201d\n She lieth in the rough barley.\n\n \u201cWhose barley pillows now her breast?\u201d\n A neighbour\u2019s barley gives her rest.\n\n\n\n\n WEDDING SONGS\n\n\n SONG OF DEPARTURE: A BRIDE OF BUKOVINA\n\n Dear my mother, weep not!\n I shall not take all;\n See, the cows and oxen\n Leave I in the stall.\n\n I take just black eyebrows,\n Only eyes of blue;\n And upon your table\u2014\n Tears I leave for you.\n\n And the little pathway\n Where my footsteps fell\n While I brought you water\n Daily from the well.\n\n _The Mother speaks_\u2014\n Pathway, little garden\u2014\n (Ah, she must depart!)\n When I gaze upon you\n Faints my breaking heart.\n\n\n UNPLAITING THE HAIR[14]\n\n (_Przemysl District_)\n\n \u201cUnbraid her dusky hair\n And place a garland there.\u201d\n\n The Duchess Marusenka\n To the city Horodenka\n Trips with her small white feet.\n\n She cuts barw\u0113nok there\n To wreathe her dusky hair.\n\n Her mother comes, pursuing,\n \u201cMy child, what art thou doing?\u201d\n\n \u201cDear mother, can it be\n Thou hast no need for me?\n\n \u201cThou wilt not let me stay\n But strive to force away.\n\n \u201cTo give away thy daughter\n To him who now has sought her?\n\n \u201cStill very young am I,\n Not very wise. Then why ...\u201d\n\n \u201cI force and give away\n What I would not have stay.\n\n \u201cNo longer I\u2019m inclined\n For thee upon my mind!\n\n \u201cStrangers for thee inquire;\n I yield to their desire.\u201d\n\n\n THE BRIDE\u2019S SONG\n\n _On the threshold of her mother\u2019s house, as she is leaving_\n\n \u201cMother mine, keep well!\u2014for now we two must part.\n Say not that I\u2019ve taken all, I pray you have no fears.\n Lo, upon the table I am leaving\u2014tears!\n While outside more tears shall fall from my saddened heart.\u201d\n\n \u201cManisma, go then; leave me quite alone!\n Leave the flowers you used to tend\u2014who will watch them grow?\n Who will plant more in the spring in a pretty row,\n Who will water them when all the buds are blown?\u201d\n\n \u201cSome one else must water them! If I unhappy be\n Why then should I just for flowers ever weep or sigh?\u201d\n \u201cWho will sweep from off the walk leaves that on them lie?\u201d\n \u201cIf my lover comes no more the dead leaves he won\u2019t see!\u201d\n\n\n THE BRIDE\n\n (_This is sung by a maiden about to be married in a land far from her\n parents and native land_)\n\n \u201cMarusya, Marusya, dost thou not lonesome feel?\n And tears from thy blue eyes must surely unbidden steal.\n\n \u201cIn a strange new country thy wedding-day sun must rise;\n And none of thy kin will be near thee to love, praise or advise.\n\n \u201cWhy dost thou not write, therefore, and tell thy mother to sail?\n Surely her hands are anxious to cover thy head with a veil.\u201d\n\n Then to the wondering maidens the sad Marusya said:\n \u201cVerily now I know not if ever I shall be wed:\n\n \u201cI shall never write to my mother and ask her to come to me.\n For alas, I have no mother since I dwell in this far country!\u201d\n\n\n THE DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING\n\n (_Old Folk-Song_)\n\n The bride sings to her lover:\n\n \u201cThick were the leaves on the lofty tree\u2014\n Why came you not last night to me?\n\n \u201cI wonder! But, of course,\n Maybe you had no horse,\n Maybe you lost your way;\n Your mother made you stay?\u201d\n\n Her lover replies:\n \u201cI had the horse and the way I knew,\n And my mother kept me not from you.\n\n \u201cBut my youngest sister loves you not....\n She hid my saddle\u2014long I sought\u2014\n\n \u201cMy oldest sister, seeking, found,\n Swift on my horse\u2019s back \u2019twas bound.\n\n \u201cShe whispered, \u2018Try and get there soon,\n Riding along by the light o\u2019 the moon.\n\n \u201c\u2018In body brave keep a good head,\n Brother o\u2019 mine!\u2019 she laughing said.\n\n \u201c\u2018In Sweetheart Land there\u2019s much to learn,\n The road has many a curve and turn.\n\n \u201c\u2018Don\u2019t loose your horse, don\u2019t go astray;\n Ride! Ere yet dawns your wedding day.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\n HISTORICAL SONGS\n\n\n PAN[15] KANOVSKY\u2014SONG OF FEUDALISM\n\n Bohuslav was Pan Kanovsky\u2019s\u2014Dancing there,\n Bonderivna\u2014as the Pava[16] she was fair.\n\n Then he saw her, the wild pigeon, full of grace\u2014\n And she felt upon her cheek his embrace.\n\n \u201cPan Kanovsky! You may take e\u2019en my shoes\n Off my feet.... But I kiss whom I choose!\u201d\n\n Then the good folk of the town whispered low:\n \u201cIf thou dost not haste away cometh woe!\u201d\n\n Bonderivna\u2019s o\u2019er the bridge like the wind:\n She has left the village houses far behind.\n\n With drawn sabres two grim soldiers follow fast\n Through the market-place ... poor pigeon! caught at last.\n\n Pan Kanovsky\u2019s silver musket pointed straight\n At her heart.... And she chose then her fate.\n\n \u201cBonderivna, tall and lovely, live with me,\n Or as dung upon the earth you shall be!\u201d\n\n \u201cRather would I, Pan Kanovsky, fall and die,\n Than in arms I loathe, like yours, ever lie!\u201d\n\n As she answered, so he fired\u2014so she fell.\n And her father, watching, moaned: \u201cIt is well,\n\n \u201cI die with thee, fairest maid of them all!\u201d\n And he dashed his white head \u2019gainst the wall.\n\n Tolled the bells\u2014wailing music cried aloud:\n \u201cBonderivna, earth for aye is thy shroud!\u201d\n\n\n MARUSYA BOHUSLAVKA\n (DUMA)\n\n On the Black Sea,\n On a white rock,\n Stood a stone prison:\n Seven hundred Cossacks,\n Unfortunate ones,\n In this dungeon lay\n These thirty years\n Seeing not God\u2019s world,\n Nor the righteous sun upon their eyes:\n\n (\u201cAlmighty God,\n Save us, wretched ones,\n From hard captivity,\n From the Mohammedan faith!\n Send us forth to the bright stars,\n To the peaceful waters,\n To the joyful land,\n The Christian world.\n Hear us, O God, in this our prayer!\u201d)\n\n To them the captive maiden,\n Marusya Bohuslavka, Daughter of the Priest,\n Came,\n And said unto them:\n\n \u201cHai, Cossacks!\n Ye unfortunate captives,\n Tell me\u2014what day is it in Ukraine now?\u201d\n\n \u201cHai, captive maiden, Marusya Bohuslavka!\n How may we know what day it is in Ukraine?\n Are we not thirty years in captivity,\n Seeing not God\u2019s world,\n Nor the blessed sun upon our eyes?\n Because of this we know not what day it is in Ukraine now.\u201d\n\n Then the captive maid, Marusya Bohuslavka, Daughter of the Priest,\n Said unto the Cossacks:\n \u201cOi, Cossacks, ye unfortunates!\n To-day in our land is Easter Even,\n And to-morrow is the holy feast day of Easter!\u201d\n\n They bowed their white faces to the ground\n And cursed her, Marusya, the captive maid:\n \u201cMay God give thee, Daughter of the Priest,\n Neither fortune nor happy fate\n Since thou it was who told us what day had dawned in Ukraine!\u201d\n\n \u201cOi, Cossacks! ye unfortunate captives,\n Swear not, curse not me:\n When our Turkish Pasha goes to the Mosque\n Then will I come to the dungeon\n And I will throw wide the door\n And release you all\u2014unfortunate.\u201d\n\n On the first day of Easter,\n When the Turkish Pasha went to the Mosque,\n He gave the keys to the captive maid,\n Marusya Bohuslavka, Daughter of the Priest.\n She came and freed the captives,\n And said unto them,\n \u201cOi, Cossacks!\n I say unto you\u2014do what is right;\n Flee to the cities of Ukraine.\n But, I entreat you, pass not by\n The town of Bohuslav.\n See my mother and father;\n Tell my father to sell not his herds,\n To disperse not his wealth,\n To heap up no more money\n To free me from captivity,\n Because I have become a Turk\u2014Mohammedan\u2014\n For Turkish comfort, good life\u2014unhappy pleasure!\u201d\n\n\n AKHMET III. AND THE ZAPOROGIANS\n\n S. RUDANSKY\n\n (_The letter written by the Cossacks to the Sultan is in a museum in\n Russia_)\n\n In the year 1600, in that God\u2019s year,\n A letter came from Akhmet\n To our Zaporogie:\n \u201cI, Sultan, the son of Mohammed,\n The grandson of the one God,\n The brother of the Crescent\n And even of the Sun;\n Knight strong and great,\n King of Kings,\n Champion of all the world,\n And Tzar of Tzars:\n Tzar of Constantinople,\n Tzar of Macedonia,\n Greece, Serbia, Moldavia;\n Tzar of Babylon, Podolia and Halych,\n And glorious Krimea:\n Tzar of Egypt, Arabia, Jerusalem,\n The Keeper of the Tomb in Jerusalem\n And of your God;\n I am the Sorrow and the Help\n Of all Christian men\u2014\n I say to ye, Cossacks,\n Surrender!\n Or expect no good from me.\u201d\n\n In the same year the Zaporogians\n Read the Letter\n And said to their foe, the Sultan:\n \u201cThou, Sultan, art the devil\u2019s son,\n The grandson of Haspid[17] himself,\n And thou, a horn\u00e8d chort[18]!\n\n \u201cThou art but a wretched inn-keeper\n In Constantinople;\n A Macedonian brewer,\n Greek and Moldavian swine,\n And Babylonian blacksmith;\n\n \u201cThou oppressor of Serbia and Podolia,\n Krimean parrot, Egyptian swine-herd;\n Owl of Jerusalem!\n No help of Christians art thou, but a fool;\n No protector of our God.\n Thou art not worthy to kiss us anywhere\u2014\n Nor worthy to hold our Zaporogie.\n\n \u201cWe shall fight thee\n By land and sea!\n We do not fear thee,\n Thou son of a dog!\n Such is our answer!\n\n \u201cWe know not what year this may be,\n Because we have no calendars in our Seech\u2014\n Our \u2018Meassiatz\u2019[19] is now in the heaven;\n This day is the same day as with you.\n Then, Turks, after these words\n Try to take us!\u201d\n\n\n BEFORE POLTAVA\n\n _When the Swedish King, Charles XII., was defeated by Peter the Great_\n\n (_Song ascribed to the Hetman Mazeppa_[20])\n\n O woeful fate\n For unhappy Tchyka![21]\n Which brought up children\n Beside the broad road\u2014\n Ki-hi! Ki-hi!\n\n She fled on high\u2014\n Is it time for her\n To fall into the sea?\n Ki-hi! Ki-hi!\n\n Ripe is the rye\u2014\n The harvest has come\u2014\n The Harvesters reap\n And her nestlings take.\n Ki-hi! Ki-hi!\n\n The Tchyka flutters\n Beating her wings.\n Why should she fly,\n Why should she cry\n Ki-hi! Ki-hi?\n\n How should she not cry\n With wild flutterings?\n \u201cMy brood is so young,\n And a mother am I.\u201d\n Ki-hi! Ki-hi!\n\n \u201cO little ones, where\n Shall I hide you all?\n Must I drown myself,\n Be killed in my fall?\n Ki-hi! Ki-hi.\u201d\n\n Unhappy Tchyka!\n O woeful fate!\n Nest by the road\n Left desolate.\n Ki-hi! Ki-hi!\n\n And the Harvesters passed\n And flung her by,\n Flung away Tchyka,\n Vain her cry\u2014\n \u201cKi-hi! Ki-hi!\u201d\n\n Fly to the Meadows, Tchyka, fly!\n They took thy brood;\n Thy nestlings young\n Are the harvesters\u2019 food.\n\n\n TIME OF TARTAR INVASION[22]\n\n (FRAGMENT)\n\n Ukraina is sad for that she has no place to dwell in\u2014\n The Ord\u00e0 trampled the little children with their steeds,\n By the Horde were the old people carried away,\n The rest flung they into slavery.\n\n Who will take Ukraine under its wing\n In so evil an hour?\n Her land is torn in two,\n Her children are broken in four parts,\n Her visage is darkened; she is wan\n Because of the evil deeds of the Tartars.\n\n\n THE SONG OF BIDA[23]\n\n Bida, Bida drinks honey-horeevka\n Not one day, not two days, not one night only.\n\n The Sultan of Turkey has come to-day\u2014\n \u201cWhat are you doing, young fellow, pray?\u201d\n\n \u201cI drink,\u201d said Bida, \u201cnot one day only,\n Not two days, no\u2014and my night\u2019s not lonely.\u201d\n\n \u201cIf you stop drinking I pledge my oath\n My daughter to you shall plight her troth.\u201d\n\n \u201cShe is not comely enough to see.\n Faugh! Your religion is not for me.\u201d\n\n \u201cHo there, my men! Just take this wretch,\n Put a hook in his ribs and give him a stretch.\u201d\n\n O not one day, not two days only,\n Not one night hangeth Bida lonely.\n\n The Doub-tree seeth the Sultan come:\n \u201cHa, Bida, art thou then quite dumb?\u201d\n\n \u201cNay,\u201d said the rogue, \u201cI see two trees,\n Two pigeons perching at their ease.\n\n \u201cYour bow and arrow lend,\u201d quoth he,\n \u201cAnd you shall sup right daintily.\u201d\n\n The weapon Bida\u2019s right hand nears\u2014\n The Sultan\u2019s pierced between the ears.\n\n Freed, he has shot the Sultan\u2019s wife,\n Nor will he spare the daughter\u2019s life.\n\n \u201cThis was a king once,\u201d Bida cries,\n \u201cBut see how stiff and cold it lies!\n\n \u201cWell, as for me, I surely think\n That I deserve another drink.\u201d\n\n Bida, Bida drinks honey-horeevka\n Not one day, not two days, not one night only.\n\n\n\n\n COSSACK SONGS\n\n\n COSSACK MARCHING SONG\n\n (_Sixteenth Century_)\n\n Cossacks whistled! They were marching,\n Marching far away at midnight....\n Dark-brown eyes of Marusenka\n They will soon be blind from weeping.\n\n \u201cWeep not, weep not, Marusenka,\n Be not sad\u2014rise from thy sorrow!\n Pray the good God for thy dearest.\u201d\n\n Rose the moon in windless silence\u2014\n To the Cossack spake his mother,\n Her farewell with tears was given:\n \u201cGo, then, go, my little son, now!\n Go, but see thou\u2019rt not long absent.\n Come back when four weeks are over.\u201d\n\n \u201cGladly would I, O my Mother,\n Come before a month is over,\n But ... my horse, my black horse splendid\n Stumbled with me at our gateway!\n Oi! God knows\u2014all\u2019s in His willing\u2014\n Whether I return home safely,\n Or on bloody field should lay me.\n Time of my return God knoweth,\n Only He\u2014As thine own daughter\n Keep my Marusenka by thee....\n Hai! Don\u2019t weep and don\u2019t be sorry:\n Under me my horse is dancing,\n Prancing and curvetting proudly,\n Home ere long you may expect me!\u201d\n\n\n CHARGE OF THE COSSACKS\n\n Hai! roll up! Eagles brave,\n To protect \u201cthe Tchighka\u201d (Tchyka[24])\n And gain glory newly.\n Nobles all!\n Or we fall.\n Twice we die not, truly\u2014\n Hai! Take arms. On we go!\n\n From our rifles we shall shout,\n We shall roar from cannon,\n With our sabres clashing\u2014\n Nobles all,\n Or we fall!\n \u2019Gainst our foemen dashing.\n Hai! Take arms. On we go!\n\n\n THE YOUNG RECRUITS\n\n Along the hills lies the snow,\n But the streams they melt and flow;\n By the road the poppies blow\u2014\n Poppies? Nay, scarlet though they glow\n These are no flowers\u2014the young recruits!\n They are the young recruits!\n\n To Krym, to Krym they ride,\n The soldiers, side by side\u2014\n And over the country wide\n Sounds the beat of the horse\u2019s stride.\n\n One calls to her soldier son:\n \u201cReturn, O careless one!\n Of scrubbing wilt have none?\n Let me wash thy head\u2014then run!\u201d\n\n \u201cNay, mother, wash thine own,\n Or make my sister groan.\n Leave thou thy son alone!\n Too swift the time has flown.\n\n \u201cMy head the fine spring rain\n Will soon wash clean again,\n And stout thorns will be fain\n To comb what rough has lain.\n\n \u201cThe sun will make it dry,\n Wind-parted it will lie\u2014\n So, mother mine, good-bye!\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n He could not hear her cry.\n\n\n MOTHER AND SON\n\n (_This song was composed before 1648_)\n\n All the oak forest is murmuring, murmuring:\n Thick veils of fog o\u2019er the fields and wide meadows cling.\n\n \u201cGo away, my son, from me\u2014\n May the raiding Turk take thee!\u201d\n\n \u201cMother, well the Sultan knows\n Thy brave son. (This witness shows.)\n\n \u201cFor he pays me from the mine\n Tribute\u2014gold and silver fine!\u201d\n\n \u201cGo away, my son, from me\u2014\n May Litv\u00e0[25] soon capture thee!\u201d\n\n \u201cLitv\u00e0 knows me too\u2014I feed\n From her tribute, wine and mead.\u201d\n\n \u201cGo away, my son, from me,\n May the Tartars soon take thee!\u201d\n\n \u201cThose wild Hordes take, in much fear,\n Other roads when I draw near!\u201d\n\n \u201cGo away, my son, from me\u2014\n Moscow! Let the Tzar take thee!\u201d\n\n \u201cBut the Tzar likes me so well,\n With him I\u2019ve been asked to dwell!\u201d\n\n \u201cAh, my son, come home instead.\n Let me, dear one, wash thy head.\u201d\n\n \u201cNay, my mother, nay. With rain\n Washing it I\u2019ll not complain.\n\n \u201cWinds will dry my dripping hair;\n Teren-bush[26] will comb it fair.\u201d\n\n All the deebrova[27] is murmuring, murmuring\u2014\n Leaden clouds over heaven lowering masses fling.\n\n \u201cFarewell!\u201d the sisters cry\u2014for he must go with speed.\n She who is eldest born leads out his splendid steed.\n\n And then the second-born armour brings out to him:\n Youngest of all entreats\u2014asks with her eyes tear-dim:\n\n \u201cWhen, O my brother dear, comest thou back to us?\u201d\n \u201cAh, sister! Of the sand take thou a handful thus....\n\n \u201cSow on a rock. Each dawn water it with thy tears.\n That day the sand springs up\u2014thy brother lost appears!\u201d\n\n\n THE CAPTIVES\n\n _Cuckoo! calls the Cuckoo...._\n\n In the dawn, in the dawn the young Cossacks are crying,\n Far away from their loves, in prison lying,\n The dungeon\u2019s dark, their hope is gone,\n But the Cuckoo calls, in the dawn, in the dawn!\n\n Blows the wind, blows the wind\u2014From the sea were it blowing\n \u2019Twould bear us away beyond all knowing!\n Our heavy chains we\u2019d leave behind\n If over the sea should come the wind.\n\n O the sun! O the sun in Ukraine shining!\n Take us to where our loves are pining....\n The Cossacks have their dance begun,\n The dance of joy, in the sun, in the sun.\n\n Blue sea! On the sea with the wind they\u2019re dancing\u2014\n Our brothers surely are advancing\n From prison chains the sad to free.\n O swiftly come, o\u2019er the sea, o\u2019er the sea!\n\n _Cuckoo, calls the Cuckoo...._\n\n In the dawn, in the dawn the Sultan sleeping\n Is wakened by the sound of weeping\u2014\n \u201cBind stronger chains their limbs upon\n That none may flee, in the dawn, in the dawn!\u201d\n\n\n COSSACK MARCHING SONG\n\n (_Semi-historical_)\n\n The Harvesters are reaping on the hill-side,\n And in the valley where the grass is green\n The Cossacks leap astride their horses lean.\n\n That gallant hetman, Doroshonko,\n Is leading all his troop with right good-will\u2014\n Over at last the weary days of drill!\n\n And see that captain stationed in the centre,\n His steed is prancing, pawing up the ground ...\n Brave Sahaidachni, at the rear, looks round.\n\n In fair exchange for pipe and for tobacco\n He\u2019s said adieu to Priska, his good wife\u2014\n \u201cSuch a mistake! The greatest of my life!\u201d\n\n So is he thinking when he hears one calling:\n \u201cCome back, come back and take your wife once more;\n My pipe and my tobacco please restore!\u201d\n\n \u201cAh, ha!\u201d he shouts, \u201ca wife I\u2019ll not be needing\u2014\n But your carved pipe is handy on the road.\n What a fine thing you have on me bestowed!\n\n \u201cHai! Who goes there? Pass, friend\u2014and on we\u2019re faring;\n With flint and steel I\u2019ll get a puff or two,\n So then\u2014don\u2019t worry\u2014and good-bye to you.\u201d\n\n\n SONG OF VICTORY\u20141648\n\n _When the Cossacks under Khmelnitzky expelled the Poles from the\n Ukraine_\n\n Hai, all ye good people! list what I tell ye,\n What\u2019s done in Ukraina\u2019s plain\u2014\n There under Dashiev, across the Soroka,\n What numbers of Poles now lie slain.\n\n Hai, Perebiynees! But seven hundred\n Cossacks he asked for that day.\n Then he with sabres smote the Poles\u2019 heads off\u2014\n The rest swept the river away.\n\n Drink ye swamp water, Oi! all ye Poles now\u2014\n Quench thirst at each rain-pond ye see....\n And once ye were drinking, in our Ukraina,\n Wine and sweet mead flowing free!\n\n Each Polish \u201cPan\u201d is lost now in wonder;\n \u201cWhat do these brave Cossacks eat?\n Verily, look ye, they live just on pike-flesh,\n Solam\u00e0kha[28] with water their meat.\u201d\n\n Look now, ye Poles, whom our Hetman Khmelnitzky\n Fought on the grim \u201cYellow Sands,\u201d\n Of all your army fighting young Cossacks\n Not one has escaped from our hands.\n\n See, Pole! A Cossack is dancing, is dancing\n Upon a grey horse after thee!\n When he stands with his musket thy heart sinks in anguish\n In great fear of death thou dost flee.\n\n We own the whole land e\u2019en as far as Sluch river,\n Kostiana! As far as thy Hill\u2014\n O rude and uncourteous! Poles caused our revolting\n So mourn they their lost Ukraine still.\n\n As a thunder-cloud brooding on Vistula\u2019s river\n The Poles lie, expelled from Ukraine.\n As long as we live they shall no more leave Poland,\n They shall not come nigh us again.\n\n Hai! All ye young Cossacks! Leap up now with shouting\u2014\n Akimbo our arms let us place.\n We threw all the Poles across Vistula\u2019s waters\u2014\n And here they won\u2019t dare show their face!\n\n\n IN TURKISH CAPTIVITY\n\n On the blue sea waves are roaring,\n Mountain high they tower.\n Crying in their Turkish dungeon\n Wretched Cossacks cower.\n\n \u201cWhy, O gracious God, this torture?\n Two years now we lie here;\n With the chains our hands are heavy\u2014\n Wilt Thou let us die here?\n\n \u201cWings of Ukraina\u2019s Eaglets,\n Yanichars[29] cut, throwing\n In the grave the living victims,\n All their sorrow knowing.\n\n \u201cHai! Ye youthful Zaporogians,[30]\n Have ye not arisen?\n Sons of Freedom, ever glorious,\n Rescue us from prison!\u201d\n\n\n LAMENT FOR MOROZENKO\n\n (_This Cossack song of the seventeenth century is sung to a mournful\n air which makes a splendid funeral march. Morozenko was an\n Ukrainian Governor of a province killed in war with the Tartars._)\n\n Trenches along the foot of the mountain\u2014\n They took Morozenko on Sunday morning.\n The Tartars nor slashed him, nor pierced him with spears;\n They tore out the heart from the white, white breast,\n And they led him to Savour-Mohyla\u2019s height:\n \u201cLook thou, O son of the foe, down there!\n Look on thine Ukraine stretching far!\u201d\n They set him down on the yellow sands,\n And they took off from him a red, red shirt.[31]\n\n Oi, Moroze, Morozenko!\n Thou glorious Cossack.\n All Ukraine laments thee,\n O brave Morozenko!\n Much more thy bold army,\n O glorious Cossack!\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n On the way to the town Morozikha wept\u2014\n Sore wept Morozikha for her son.\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t cry, Morozikha, don\u2019t be sad.\n Come with us Cossacks to drink wine-mead.\u201d\n\n \u201cDrink your good health, if drink you would,\n But around my head misfortune flies.\n Drink your good health, if drink you may....\n Oi, where does he fight, my son, my son!\n Does he fight with the Tartars, one by one?\u201d\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t cry, Morozikha, don\u2019t be sad;\n Come with us Cossacks to look on....\n For see! A horse walks behind a wagon,\n A bloody wagon it walks behind.\n It carries your glorious Moroze,\n The white flesh cut, the brave head broken,\n The face is covered with red kitayka.[32]...\u201d\n\n Oi, Moroze, Morozenko!\n Thou glorious Cossack\u2014\n All Ukraine shall weep\n And mourn for thee.\n\n\n\n\n ROBBER SONGS\n\n\n THE DEATH OF DOBUSH[33]\n\n 1745\n\n Along the edges of the wooded height\n Walks young Dobush;\n Lame in one leg, he on his topir[34] leans\n And calls his lads:\n\n \u201cO, ye Legini,[35] O, my boys!\n We\u2019ll council hold\n Whom next are we to rob?\n Kooty we must not miss,\n Nor overlook Kossiev.[36]\n Now sleep, my boys,\n Because we rise at dawn;\n Dress in a trice, skin postoli[37] put on,\n Povoloki[38] of silk....\n\n \u201cNow run, boys\u2014quick!\n Snow covers all the paths;\n To Dzveenka\u2019s house go first,\n Where we\u2019ll see Stefan\u2019s wife.\u201d\n\n \u201cOi, Dobush! Nay, my lord,\n Sure mischief will befall.\u201d\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t trouble about me;\n Load your good musket with\n A double charge\u2014stand by the gate\u2014\n I\u2019ll to the window go\n To see if she still sleeps.\u201d\n\n \u201cMy heart, dost thou sleep,\n Dost thou hear?\n Dost thou wish to receive Dobush?\u201d\n\n \u201cI am not asleep. No. I hear\n Each word that you say to me.\n I\u2019m working that I may sup\u2014\n Stefan is not at home....\n The supper\u2019s not ready yet,\n But \u2019twill be a splendid one,\n And a wonder for all the world.\u201d\n\n \u201cDost thou sleep, my heart,\n Dost thou hear?\n Wilt receive Dobush for the night?\u201d\n\n \u201cI sleep not\u2014I hear every word\u2014\n I will not let the robber in.\u201d\n\n \u201cWilt thou open the door, I say?\n Dost tell me to storm it then?\u201d\n\n \u201cI give no command to storm.\n But\u2014open it? No, not I.\u201d\n\n \u201cLet me into the hut\u2014thou fool!\n Ere I break open the door.\u201d\n\n \u201cMy door is too strong for you\u2014\n My locks are of trusty steel.\u201d\n\n \u201cThy locks will not help thee much\n When to them my shoulder I set.\u201d\n\n \u201cThe strength of full seven more years\n You\u2019ll need ere you burst my door.\u201d\n\n Dobush, Dobush pressed hard\u2014\n The locks fell in a heap,\n And Dobush opened the door,\n Just a little opened the door....\n\n And then Dzveenka fired\n From the attic where he hid,\n He aimed at the heart of Dobush.\n\n Not in the heart fell the blow;\n Through shoulders the bright blood burst.\n\n \u201cDog-catcher! You! Dzveenchuk!\n You have eaten me up for her.\u201d\n\n \u201cWhy did you woo her? Why\n Did you say you were Dobush?\n Why tell her all the truth?\n Knew you not woman\u2019s truth\n Is fast-running water\u2019s foam?\u201d\n\n The Oprishki came to the hut\n But they found Dzveenka was flown.\n\n \u201cOi! Dobush, our good lord,\n Why killed you not the wife?\u201d\n\n \u201cHow could I kill her, say,\n If I loved her so much?\u201d\n\n \u201cOi, Dobush, our great lord!\n Misfortune\u2019s surely here.\n Treachery ne\u2019er before\n To your Legini came,\n But now there\u2019s treachery.\u201d\n\n \u201cLegini, Oi! my boys,\n Lay me on your topirs,\n Carry me down in the Chorna-Hora,\n Where the Black Mountains be,\n Then cut my body up as fine as poppy seed.\n Let not the Germans mock,\n Or quarter my body.\n\n \u201cDivide among yourselves the treasure that was ours\u2014\n Then singly go away.\n But not to rob\u2014\n Not to shed human blood;\n Blood is not water, mind,\n Not meant to be poured down!\u201d\n\n But then the Germans came,\n And Dzveenka led them on.\n\n \u201cOi, Oi, Dobush, our lord,\n What woeful fate is ours!\n Where shall we winter spend,\n Where all the summer days?\u201d\n\n \u201cIn Stanislav, my boys,\n Yea, at the market-place!\n Tortured, while, bound in irons,\n Germans shall tear your flesh,\n And there you\u2019ll sleep for aye.\u201d\n\n\n SONG OF THE OPRISHKI[39]\u2014(OUTLAWS)\n\n Hai, Brethren, Oprishki\u2014give me more horeevka![40]\n On the camp-fire now heap on more wood.\n If you tuned then my throat to the sound of Sopeevka,[41]\n I\u2019d sing for as long as I could.\n\n We are safe just as long as the green grass is growing\u2014\n If the forest of leaves be not bare,\n If behind the thick bush and green pine we are going,\n Even Chorts[42] could not find us hid there.\n\n As the heaven for birds, so for us are the hollows,\n The caves in Carpathian crests.\n We sleep till the stars, till our own shadow follows,\n And then we creep out of our nests.\n\n Tobacco we bring from far Hungary\u2019s borders\n (Fleet horsemen their chase may give o\u2019er),\n The Jew merchant clothing shall give at our orders,\n Or else he\u2019ll be nailed to his door.\n\n Be joyful, my brothers, each day that is ours,\n No life such as this can last long.\n When snow falls our heads will hang down like the flowers;\n No more shall be heard our glad song.\n\n For Austrian soldiers, when first snow is falling,\n In uniforms white will appear....\n Kolomea![43] Thy bells as of old may be calling\u2014\n Their chiming we never shall hear.\n\n\n THE HAIDAMAKY\u2014\u201cKNIGHTS OF VENGEANCE\u201d\n\n \u201cHaidamaky\u201d they call us, unrelenting and stern,\n With the wrongs of our nation for vengeance we burn.\n\n Our forebears were tortured; our grandsons shall be\n Unless we will show them how men may be free.\n\n Haidamaky they call us, forever the same,\n And we lay down our lives, caring nothing for fame.\n\n For the time long has passed when the yoke pressed us sore:\n If a hundred shall fall there are yet thousands more.\n\n Out of misery\u2019s chains the trampled slaves rise,\n And to Freedom\u2019s bright flag they will lift dazzled eyes.\n\n Truth and courage for oath, and our Vengeance for breath\u2014\n Haidamaky they call us, men who fear not their death.\n\n\n SONG OF KARMEL\u016aK\n\n (_Written by himself_)\n\n From Siberia I return\u2014\n With no fortune I am come.\n Not in chains, but yet not free.\n Wife and children may be mine,\n But their faces I can\u2019t see.\n When I think upon their fate\n Then I weep most bitterly.\n\n Good lads have I gathered round\n (What concerns it any one?),\n By the road lie on the ground!\n Riders, when will ye pass by?\n Tedious it is to wait\u2014\n No abode, no hut have I.\n The police won\u2019t make me wince\n Though Assessors scan each nook,\n Hunt in every likely den.\n They themselves have killed more men\n Than your Karmel\u016bk has sins!\n\n \u201cRobber!\u201d so good folk may cry\u2014\n \u201cMurderer!\u201d But I\u2019ve killed none.\n For, look ye, I have a soul.\n I may take from rich my toll\n (And I\u2019ll do it too, be sure!),\n Free from sin is Karmel\u016bk\n For he gives it to the poor.\n\n Rising o\u2019er Siberia\n Shines the sun. Keep watch you must.\n Yet in me put all your trust.\n Rest your hopes on Karmel\u016bk!\n\n\n\n\n TCHUMAK SONGS\n\n\n KHUSTINA\u2014THE BETROTHAL KERCHIEF[44]\n\n TARAS SHEVCHENKO\n\n On Sunday she did not dance\u2014\n She earned the money for her skeins of silk\n With which she embroidered her kerchief.\n And while she stitched she sang:\n \u201cMy kerchief, embroidered, stitched, and scalloped!\n I shall present thee and my lover shall kiss me.\n O Khustina, bright with my painting.\n I am unplaiting my hair,[45] I walk with my lover\u2014\n (O my Fate! My Mother!)\n The people will wonder in the morning\n That an orphan should give this kerchief\u2014\n Fine-broidered and painted kerchief.\u201d\n\n So worked she at her stitching, and gazed down the road\n To listen for the bellowing of the curved-horned oxen,\n To see if her Tchumak comes homeward.\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n The Tchumak is coming from beyond Lyman,\n With another\u2019s possessions, with no luck of his own.\n He drives another man\u2019s oxen; he sings as he drives:\n\n \u201cO my fate, my fortune,\n Why is it not like that of others?\n Do I drink and dance?\n Have I not got strength?\n Know I not the roads of the steppes\n That lead to thee?\n Do I not offer thee my gifts,\n (For I have gifts)\u2014my brown eyes\u2014\n My young strength, bought by the rich?\n ... Perchance they have mated my sweetheart to another.\n Teach me, O Fortune, how to forget,\n How to drown my grief in drink and song.\u201d\n\n And as he journeyed over the steppes, lonesome, unhappy, he wept\u2014\n And out on the steppes, on a grave, a grey owl hooted.\n\n The Tchumaki,[46] greatly troubled, entreated:\n \u201cBless us, Ataman, that we may reach the village,\n For we would bring our comrade to the village\n That there he may confess ere death; be shriven.\u201d\n They confessed; heard mass, consulted fortune-tellers.\n But it availed not; so with him, unholpen,\n They moved along the road. Was it his burden,\n The constant burden of his anxious love\n (Or victim he of some one\u2019s evil spell?),\n That so they brought him from the Don\n Home on a waggon?\n\n God he besought\n At least to see his sweetheart. But not so\u2014\n He pleaded not enough.... They buried him ...\n And none will mourn him, buried far away;\n They placed a cross upon the orphan\u2019s grave\n And journeyed on.\n\n As the grass withers, as the leaf falls on the stream,\n Is borne to distance dim,\n The Cossack left this world, and took with him\n All that he had.\n\n Where is the kerchief, silken-wrought?\n The merry girl-child, where?\n The wind a kerchief waves\n On the new cross.\n A maiden in a nunnery\n Unbinds her hair.\n\n\n THE PENNILESS TCHUMAK\n\n In the market-place of Kiev\n A young Tchumak drank and drank:\n Oxen, wagons, yokes and yoke-sticks,\n All his wealth in drink he sank,\n In the market-place of Kiev.\n\n And at sundown he awoke\u2014\n How he peered into his purse!\n All his pockets he turned out,\n With full many a muttered curse,\n In the market-place of Kiev.\n\n Not a penny to be found!\n For his revelling was naught.\n \u201cPour, Shinkarka,[47] half a quart!\u201d\n But she laughs at such a thought\n Scorns to wait on such as he.\n\n Then he takes his zhupan[48] off.\n \u201cOh, Shinkarka, even pour\n Just a quarter of a quart!\u201d\n \u201cTo coat add four zloty[49] more\u2014\n Then there\u2019s drink for revelling!\u201d\n\n To \u201cmohyla\u201d[50] sad he went,\n Gazed adown the valley green:\n Oxen, wagons\u2014wagered, spent\u2014\n Yokes and yoke-sticks, all his wealth\n Lost in market-place of Kiev!\n\n \u201cOi, I\u2019m off to distant lands!\n To Moldavia[51] go I\u2014\n I\u2019ll be slaving seven years,\n Then more oxen I shall buy,\n And I\u2019ll be Tchumak again!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n RHYTHMS\n\n\n MOTHER AND DAUGHTER\n\n \u201c_O you thought, my mother, you would never be rid of me! There will\n come a day, a Sunday, when you will wish for me; you will weep\n long and sore\u2014\u2018O where now is my daughter?\u2019_\u201d\n\n_The Daughter_\u2014\n\n If thou lovest me, Sweetheart,\n Let me go to the cherry orchard\u2014\n No ill shall befall thee\u2014I will but pluck the povna rozha.[52]\n\n To-morrow I go to the quiet dunai[53] to wash the clothes; then will I\n throw the blossom on the water.\n\n Float, float, my rozha, as high as the banks of the river are high!\n Float, my rozha, to my mother! When she comes to the river to draw\n water she will know that the flower was borne to her from her\n daughter\u2019s hand.\n\n_The Mother_\u2014\n\n Thy rozha has withered on the stream; wast thou in like ill case for\n these three years?\n\n_The Daughter_\u2014\n\n I was not sick, my mother, not a year, not an hour.... You chose for\n me a bad husband.\n\n Did I not carry water for you? Why did you not beg of God to give me a\n good husband?\n\n Did I not wash the clothes for you, O my mother?\n\n Why did you curse me in this way?\n\n_The Mother_\u2014\n\n Nay, child, I cursed thee not. But on a day\u2014and only once\u2014I said: \u201cI\n hope she may never marry!\u201d\n\n_The Daughter_\u2014\n\n And was not that wish ill enough\u2014that I should never be married? You\n could not have wished me worse just then.\n\n For\u2014when I was young\u2014I knew not what it meant\u2014the marrying of your\n daughter.\n\n\n BURIAL OF THE SOLDIER\n\n Near the pebbly shores grows a green elm-tree.\n Under the tree a soldier is dying.\n Comes a young Captain bearing a gold handkerchief: he weeps with fine,\n fine tears.\n \u201cO Captain, my Captain, weep not!\n Send word to my friends to come and build me a house.\u201d\n\n With rifles shining like silver his comrades came.\n They wept over his head with fine tears.\n\n \u201cWeep not; O ye, my dear friends; tell my father and mother to hasten\n here from the country to bury me.\u201d\n\n \u201cWhere, O my son, shall we dig thy grave?\u201d\n\n \u201cNay, neither of you shall bury me; the young soldiers only shall bear\n me there.\u201d\n\nSo they bore him, leading his horse before him; behind the coffin his\nmother walked, weeping. Even more wept his sweetheart. The tears of his\nmother would not make him rise from the dead; but his sweetheart was\ncrying and wringing her hands.\n\n For never before had a soldier been her lover:\n And never again would a soldier be one.\n\n\n THE DRUNKARD\n\n The Red Cranberry has withered\n Over the well....\n Woe to me, my mother,\n With a drunkard to live!\n A drunkard drinks day and night;\n He does not work.\n When he comes home from the Inn,\n Though I be young, young,\n Yet he strikes me!\n\n I open the casement\n As my mother comes.\n She asks of my little ones:\n \u201cIs the drunkard home?\u201d\n\n Carefully, softly\n Enter, my mother!\n My drunkard sleeps,\n Sleeps in the barn\u2014\n See thou wake him not!\n\n \u201cMay he sleep!\n May he never wake!\n That he on thy little head\n Bring no more grief.\u201d\n\n \u201cOi, my mother!\n Abuse not my drunkard.\n Tiny are my children\u2014\n Without him\n Would it not be worse?\u201d\n\n\n SONG OF THE ORPHAN\n\n I will go into the field and talk to the dew; and together with the\n dew I will bemoan our unlucky fate.\n\n I will climb a hill and fall into thought: I was left an orphan; I\n have no friends.\n\n In my tiny garden grows a lovely lily.... And what is that to me, if I\n am still young, if I am still an orphan?\n\n As the soaking hemp rots in the water, so lives an orphan in this\n world.\n\n O my Mother dear, my grey bird, you have raised me, fed me for these\n bitter woes!\n O my Mother, my golden Mother, my grey dove!\n You left me all alone to minister to others\u2019 wants.\n What have I done to you, my Mother dear, that you have so deserted me?\n If you had drowned me in my bath, my Mother,\n I would not have exchanged my fate with any earthly king\u2019s.\n\n How pretty are the flowers that bloom! How beautiful the children who\n have a mother!\n Other people\u2019s children are like dolls: and I am an orphan.\n Other people\u2019s children have mothers: and my Mother is with God.\n\n O, my Mother died! My Mother\u2014\n O unhappy fortune! She will never speak,\n She will never ask me, \u201cWhat are you doing, my daughter?\u201d\n When I begin to think of my dear Mother\n Sorrow so heavy overtakes me that I can hardly bear it.\n\n\n There is no flower in this world prettier than the Cranberry:\n No one is so lovely as a mother to a child.\n My Mother is now in the grave\u2014there is her grave\u2014\n O why was I born\u2014I, so unlucky in this world?\n\n\n THE GIFT OF A RING\n\n He gave me a ring, and I laughed and asked him:\n \u201cWhat does this mean?\u201d \u201cA gift,\u201d he answered.\n I went with another upon the morrow,\n And in the evening he was so angry.\n \u201cYou wore my ring,\u201d he said, reproachful,\n \u201cThe ring means marriage\u2014you\u2019re pledged to me!\u201d\n\n I flung my ring at the foolish creature\n And I said: \u201cNow hasten out of my sight.\n I never saw such a stupid person,\n Who says one thing and means another!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n FOLK SONGS\n\n\n \u201cMY FIELD, MY FIELD\u201d\n\n (_Fragment of an old song_)\n\n O my field, my field!\n Ploughed with bones,\n Harrowed with my breast,\n Watered with blood\n From the heart, from the bosom!\n Tell me, my field,\n When will better days be?\n\n My field, O my field!\n By my grandfather won,\n Why dost thou not give\n Me the means of life?\n Bitter toil! With my own blood stained,\n My heart\u2019s blood is there.\n How bitter for me, my field,\n To look on thee!\n\n\n SONG OF THE COSSACK\n\n Heavily hangs the rye\n Bent to the trampled ground;\n While brave men fighting die\n Through blood the horses bound.\n\n Under the white birch-tree\n A Cossack bold is slain\u2014\n They lift him tenderly\n Into the ruined grain.\n\n Some one has borne him there,\n Some one has put in place\n A scarlet cloth,[54] with prayer,\n Over the up-turned face.\n\n Softly a girl has come.\n Dove-like she looks\u2014all grey\u2014\n Stares at the soldier dumb\n And, crying, goes away.\n\n Then, swift, another maid\n \u2014Ah, how unlike she is!\u2014\n With grief and passion swayed\n Gives him her farewell kiss.\n\n The third one does not cry,\n Caresses none has she;\n \u201cThree girls thy love flung by,\n Death rightly came to thee!\u201d\n\n\n SONG\n\n I walked along the river bank,\n My horse paced by my side.\n \u201cMarry me, Cossack!\u201d a gay voice cried.\n\n \u201cMarry me, or wed me not,\n But let me hear you say\n You hope you may wed me some fine day!\u201d\n\n \u201cO were you richer, little one,\n I\u2019d take you by the hand,\n Before my stern father we two should stand.\u201d\n\n \u201cO were I rich, my Cossack,\n Do you know what I would do?\n I\u2019d tramp on your father, I\u2019d tramp on you!\u201d\n\n I walked along the river bank....\n Don\u2019t sigh, my little maid,\n In your garden barw\u0113nok will not fade.\n\n If this one leaves you, do not fret,\n Another will come soon.\n Fresh are your roses\u2014it\u2019s only June.\n\n\n ORPHAN SONG\u2014THE MOTHER\n\n As a cloud, O Lord, let me float!\n Over the village let me go.\n And into the village, like fine rain\n Let me fall, far below.\n How my child is dressed I fain would see;\n She sits in the Orphan\u2019s seat, I know;\n But she\u2019s robed as a lady of high degree!\n\n\n SONG OF UNHAPPY WOMAN\n\n Over my gate a pigeon\u2019s wings!\n Over my gate they flew\u2014\n But my father gave me not to him,\n The one I loved so true.\n\n To Voyvoda, a Captain bold,\n My father married me:\n He carried me to distant lands\n Where none of my own kin be.\n\n O I will pluck the Malva flower\n And throw it on the stream\u2014\n Now float thou far, thou Malva flower,\n To her of whom I dream!\n\n The Malva blossom floated on\n And circling on was swept....\n Drawing the water from the stream\n My mother saw\u2014and wept.\n\n \u201cOi! Daughter mine! Fear\u2019s on my heart;\n Ill liest thou on thy bed?\n For lo! thy lovely Malva flower\n Is withered all and dead.\u201d\n\n Not one day was I lying sick,\n Not one day, not one hour\u2014\n Unfaithful was the man I wed,\n And I am in his power.\n\n\n A GIRL\u2019S SONG\n\n What is the use of my black eyebrow,\n What is the use of my black eyes?\n My youth is nothing, my happiness flies.\n\n For every day my youth is going:\n Lustreless eyes have come through tears,\n Faded my eyebrow\u2019s curve appears.\n\n O maidens all, I am sick at heart now\u2014\n Like a bird that dies for lack of air\n Why should I for my beauty care?\n\n\n OLD FOLK SONG\n\n O wild horses\u2014where are ye running over the steppes?\n Where is she\u2014the maid with the lovers three?\n Where is that wheat which bloomed with a white flower?\n Where is the maiden with beauty of black eyebrows?\n Where is the wheat\u2014Can I not reap it?\n Where is the damsel\u2014Can I not wed her?\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cI had not come her gates within,\n Nor sat me down her bread to break\u2014\n I stood without on the threshold bare:\n She had poison ready in wheaten cake.\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n On a Thursday morn the Soldier came:\n On the Thursday noon the youth lay dead.\n On the Friday to the open grave\n Before his bier his horse they led.\n\n Behind his corse his mother wept....\n The maiden\u2019s mother thus did chide:\n \u201cO daughter mine! What hast thou done?\n Was it through thee thy lover died?\u201d\n\n \u201cMy mother dear, what was to do?\n My heart could find no other way.\n My soldier love had sweethearts two\u2014\n So lies he cold upon this day.\n\n \u201cI would not have him\u2014so he died\u2014\n I would not have him\u2014he sleeps sound.\n Nor shall she ever in this world\n Hold him who lies in the damp ground.\u201d\n\n\n THE DAUGHTER OF THE WITCH\n\n (VARIANT)\n\n (_Song in a play_\u2014\u201c_Go not to the Wechernyci,[55] Hritz_\u201d)\n\n \u201cGo not, I pray thee, to the dance, Hritz!\n For there await thee daughters of the witch.\n\n \u201cThey burn the straw beneath the bubbling roots\u2014\n They\u2019ll take your life just when their wish it suits.\n\n \u201cThat one with black, black eyes\u2014most potent witch is she;\n She knows all roots that grow by river or by tree.\n\n \u201cShe knows what each distils\u2014and she loves you!\n With envious love she watches what you do.\u201d\n\n Sunday morn she dug the roots;\n Monday, cleaned them; Tuesday, brewed;\n Wednesday from her cup Hritz\n Drank; on Thursday he lay dead;\n Friday comrades buried him.\n Greatly mourned the maidens all;\n Comrades, much lamenting, cursed\n Her who brought about his death:\n \u201cHritz, was never one like thee!\n May the devil take the witch!\u201d\n\n On Saturday the old witch beat full sore\n Her wicked daughter, crying o\u2019er and o\u2019er,\n\n \u201cWhy did you poison him? Did you not know\n What all the roots could tell you? Ere cock-crow\n That he must die?\u201d \u201cO mother, speak not so;\n\n \u201cThere are no scales for sorrow\u2014why did he\n Make love to her, saying he loved but me?\n For this, O Hritz, your just reward I gave\u2014\n A dark house of four planks\u2014a grave, a grave!\u201d\n\n\n SONG OF VDOV\u00c0\u2014(THE WIDOW)\n\n O\u2019er the Steppes rode he, the Cossack,\n Vdov\u00e0 was dwelling there\u2014\n \u201cDobry den! Good day, poor widow,\n Is all well? How dost thou fare?\n\n \u201cI but ask a drink of water\u2014\n Widow, with thy husband fled,\n Wilt thou give it for the asking?\u201d...\n \u201cHow knew\u2019st thou that he was dead?\u201d\n\n \u201cBy thy garden I could tell it\u2014\n Sad and lonesome is the sight.\n And thy heart is ever grieving:\n Tell me then\u2014am I not right?\n\n \u201cIn the garden of the widow\n Coreopsis blossoms not,\n Never blooms a single flower\n In so desolate a spot.\u201d\n\n (In the garden of the widow,\n Yea, in truth the wild weeds grow.\n But her children they are tended,\n And a mother\u2019s love they know.)\n\n \u201cThe rain, O the rain\n On her unploughed field!\n What should be the yield?\n Who is fain, who is fain\n For Vdov\u00e0 to toil,\n On the weed-grown soil?\n With fine, fine tears it is raining now....\n When one comes from the tomb\n Vdov\u00e0 shall plough!\u201d\n\n\n THE TWO LOVERS\n\n (FRAGMENT)\n\n The wild wind bloweth ever,\n The tree\u2019s high branches shaking.\n His letter cometh never\u2014\n And ah, my heart is breaking!\n\n O cruel wind, ever teasing!\n The man I\u2019ll soon be hating\n Keeps writing without ceasing\u2014\n How long my heart is waiting!\n\n\n SONG\u2014THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT\n\n Between the two dark clouds\n The moon comes out with light.\n A little higher than the moon\n There is a bird in flight.\n O weary, weary are the wings the sky enshrouds!\n Wings that have tired too soon.\n\n Ah, woe is for the heart\n That loved, nor ever changed.\n That ever loved so true\n What skies soe\u2019er it ranged.\n But weary, weary are the wings that must depart\u2014\n Wings that have tired of you!\n\n\n THE DISTANT SWEETHEART\n\n High is the mountain-top\u2014\n But there\u2019s a lower peak.\n Far away lives my love;\n Nearer a girl\u2019s to seek.\n\n Oxen and cows hath she\u2014\n My love of far away,\n Loveliness only holds;\n Yet is she rich to-day.\n\n Linen all bleached and white\n Lies in my neighbour\u2019s chest\u2014\n Ah, but an eyebrow black\n Counts more than all the rest!\n\n Fair maid so close to me,\n What leagues are we apart\u2014\n Over the hills to thee\n I come, I come, Sweetheart!\n\n\n THE ENCHANTRESS\n\n My girl tricked me\u2014\n But she\u2019s so nice why should I mind?\n Mother! Could\u2019st thou a nicer find\n To be the wife of this thy son?\n Nay, there was never such a one.\n But ah, she\u2019s such a little tease,\n My love, who\u2019s like red cranberries!\n\n The beauty of her eyebrows! Fain\n Am I to tell you once again\n How like the clouds they seem to be.\n They make strange weakness steal o\u2019er me;\n Her glances burn me\u2014O the gold\n And red of sunset skies unrolled!\n\n Her scarlet lips of such allure!\n (The torment I each day endure!)\n Like plums all downy to the touch,\n Ah, \u2019tis her lips I love so much!\n And yet\u2014her cheeks have havoc wrought\u2014\n Has she a witch\u2019s philtre sought?\n\n Don\u2019t fool me, little sweetheart, pray.\n As minnows in the water play\n So would you slip and slide and turn\n The while my heart must glow and burn.\n My heart has reached its utmost bounds,\n Yet still that fire gnaws, surrounds.\n\n Then, if you love me, plague me not.\n You will not lose. See what you\u2019ve got.\n But, if you love me not, my own,\n Charm me until I too am stone.\n You\u2019ll lose if you don\u2019t love, I swear,\n But\u2014charm me\u2014maybe I won\u2019t care!\n\n\n THE DYING SOLDIER\n\n _This song has many variants\u2014the introductory portion of this version\n was given me by a peasant woman\u2014while a young Ruthenian girl,\n whose brother was a soldier, said she had often heard him sing the\n words following_:\u2014\n\n Brother, whence comest thou?\n From beyond Dunai?\n What heardest thou in Ukraine?\n\n Nothing have I heard,\n Nothing have I seen,\n But horsemen on four sides.\n The Russians have covered the mountain.\n\n On that mountain a Turkish horse stands,\n On the horse sits a Turk\u2019s young son.\n In his right hand he holds a sword,\n From his left blood flows.\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n On the rocky steeps a horse is standing;\n It is neighing aloud that Love may succour;\n It is pawing the earth in woe and anguish.\n\n Beside the horse a soldier is lying;\n Above them circles a huge bird flying ...\n Beside the soldier his mother is crying.\n\n \u201cThe flag was lost\u2014why lose my life too?\n The men were falling\u2014then why not fly?\n O mother mine, be not so sorry\u2014\n I cannot bear to see you cry!\n\n \u201cThey cut me to pieces, but did not kill me.\n My head in four, my heart in six.\n My white, white fingers they cut in pieces\n As if they were but wooden sticks;\n\n \u201cMy body white, fine as seeds of poppy\u2014\n I was sore wounded in my flight.\n O mother mine, be not so sorry\n To see your son in such a plight!\n\n \u201cLook for a carpenter, look for a doctor.\n The doctor cannot help me greatly;\n The carpenter a house will make me.\n\n \u201cThis house no doors nor windows knoweth,\n But when from toil the workman goeth\n He then on me a gift bestoweth.\n\n \u201cWhen all is lost and all is finished,\n My builder and my war\u2014good-bye,\n O mother mine, cease from your weeping,\n Because your son is going to die!\u201d\n\n\n THE ORPHAN\u2019S WEDDING\n\n \u201cCome out, dear young Melanonka,\n Look about and on each hand,\n Lest perchance your father stand\n On some doorstep, Melanonka!\u201d\n\n \u201cO I know, I know\n That I have no father!...\n I will send a crow\n To some far-off land\n To bring me news\n Of my distant kin;\n And into the ground,\n Yea, deep within,\n I will send Zuzula\n For my dear father.\u201d\n\n The crow brings news from his long flight:\n \u201cYour kinsfolk come with much delight.\u201d\n Zuzula flies and tidings brings:\n \u201cYour father may not come,\u201d it sings.\n \u201cThe cold earth, like a heavy door\n Has closed. It may not open more.\n Of windows, like the shining sun,\n Alas, alas, it has not one\n Through which your father\u2019s eyes might see\n How fair his orphan child should be!\u201d\n\n \u201cMy father dear, my falcon,[56] stands\n Before the Lord, and earnestly\n He prays, \u2018O God, from heaven to earth\n Now may I go, my child to see?\u2019\u201d\n \u201cO humble soul\u2014they have no need\n For such as thee. Her maidens there,\n Faithful attendants, wait her will,\n Arrange the wreath on her bright hair,\n Heaping her dowry very high,\n They\u2019ll seat thy daughter as a queen,\n They\u2019ll robe her as a lady fair.\u201d\n\n\n MOONLIGHT[57]\n\n \u201cLight o\u2019 the moon, shine out, shine out,\n Round as the wheel of a mill.\n Come out, Sweetheart, its glory see,\n Listen, the night is still.\n Then speak for a while to me!\u201d\n\n \u201cAh, but I long to come, my love!\n See how I bend and yearn.\n But candles are still in those windows set;\n At a whisper heads will turn....\n Alas, they will part us yet!\n\n \u201cMother, is\u2019t thou?... Nay, strike me not,\n Make me not lame for aye.\n Peace.... Thou may\u2019st bandage mine eyes to-night,\n And lead me the river nigh\u2014\n But give me one moment\u2019s sight!\n\n \u201cFor then I would have one fleeting glance,\n Beautiful world, farewell!\n Earth, full of all that is loveliest,\n Who shall my sad fate tell,\n Flung on the river\u2019s breast?\n\n \u201cWorld, thou wert fair as all God\u2019s things be;\n But hardly my days went by\u2014\n Harder it is for me to go\u2014\n Sad, O sad to die,\n Nor lived my joy to know!\u201d\n\n\n ON THE STEPPES\n\n _On the steppes two fir-trees old,\n Their shrunken trunks uphold._\n\n _And there stands a third between\n Splendid in its towering green._\n\n A young Cossack lies sick on the road,\n A young Cossack lies low.\n\n _Spent he lies, and he fears that death\n Waits beside for his last-drawn breath._\n\n \u201cO my brothers, pray you run\n To let my mother know,\n To let my mother know!\n\n \u201cLet her come where the frontier lies\n To bury the Cossack,\n To bury the Cossack.\u201d\n\n (\u201c_O son of mine,\u201d she wailing cries_,\n \u201c_Lo, ever thus the sinner dies!_\n\n \u201c_Thy stubborn heart that would not bend,\n Such is thine end, such is thine end!_\u201d)\n\n \u201cAnd my grave, O Mother dear,\n With stones thou\u2019lt heap it high,\n With stones thou\u2019lt heap it high.\n\n \u201cPlant at my head red cranberries,\n Scarlet against the sky,\n Scarlet against the sky.\n\n \u201cUpon the branches hang\n A bright-red scarf, like flame,\n A scarf, like glowing flame.\n\n \u201cTo show how Cossacks die:\n Ukraine shall know my fame,\n Ukraine shall know my fame!\u201d\n\n\n IN THE GARDEN BESIDE THE WATER\n\n In the garden beside the water\n Barw\u0113nok will not grow.\n Nor will the maiden to the river go\u2014\n The miller\u2019s daughter,\n Her pails to fill.\n\n In the garden beside the water\n She spread to dry, one day,\n Seeds of the fragrant, pungent caraway.\n The miller\u2019s daughter\n She comes no more.\n\n In the garden beside the water\n A tree is bending down.\n The maiden, idle, in the sombre gown,\n The miller\u2019s daughter\n Is troubled sore.\n\n In the garden beside the water\n She doth bemoan her fate.\n A man is standing by the garden gate.\n The miller\u2019s daughter\n Hears his low laugh.\n\n\n UNREQUITED LOVE\n\n I have lost her, my loved one\u2014\n My heart is nigh broken.\n As a mother her baby\n So loved I my darling;\n So would I have given\n My loved one, my loved one, my heart!\n\n I sit by the window\n And think \u201cWould she wed me!\u201d\n If she knew all my passion\n As a mother her baby,\n So would she have loved me,\n And given her heart.\n\n Outside of her garden\n I wait for her coming\n Though cometh she never\u2014\n Alas, now I know it,\n She careth not for me\n And mocketh at love!\n\n\n THE OAK\n\n \u201cSpread wide thy fair branches, and flourish, my Oak,\n For to-morrow, to-morrow all will be lost;\n To-morrow, to-morrow cometh the frost.\n\n \u201cMake ready, young Cossack, thine arms for the war,\n For to-morrow, to-morrow the soldier must go\u2014\n To-morrow, to-morrow they march on the foe.\u201d\n\n \u201cNay, I have no fear of the frost and its might\u2014\n To-morrow, to-morrow, I stand in men\u2019s sight\n As queenly and fair, as green-leaved and bright.\u201d\n\n \u201cI am not afraid of the coming of dawn,\n Though to-morrow, to-morrow will see us march on\u2014\n To-morrow, to-morrow the Cossack is gone....\u201d\n\n \u201cSprinkle the roads that the dust may not fly:\n Cheer father and mother, friends, lest they may sigh.\u201d\n They have sprinkled the roads, but the dust hangs in clouds,\n They comfort the sad, but still Sadness enshrouds.\n\n Before the hromada[58] the Cossack bows low:\n \u201cFarewell, friends and foes, and all whom I know.\n Farewell! If perchance I have quarrelled with some\n (Or if with my friends has a variance come),\n I have ended all strife and all quarrelling sore,\n Because I return, O hromada, no more!\u201d\n\n\n NIGHT ON THE ROAD\n\n Dark the road and lonely,\n A Cossack comes a-riding\u2014\n Who is this he sees there?\n Just a girl in hiding.\n\n \u201cLook at me and fear not,\n Don\u2019t run home to Mother.\n Look! am I not handsome?\n Was ever such another?\n\n \u201cBut, my pretty lady,\n It\u2019s not you I\u2019ll marry,\n Unless it be you bring me\n Heaps of gold to carry!\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n A maiden walks in shadow\n Adown the road so lonely.\n She hears a sudden clatter\u2014\n Ah, it\u2019s a Cossack only.\n\n \u201cLook at me, my brave one,\n Black, black is my eyebrow.\n If thou could\u2019st see this Halka\n Then surely thou would\u2019st sigh now.\n\n \u201cI haven\u2019t got a kopeck\u2014\n Ah, how I love to tease thee!\n I\u2019d never wed thee, Cossack,\n Because thou dost not please me!\u201d\n\n\n SONG OF THE DANCE\n\n (_This is sung to a tune almost identical with \u201cThe Little Brown Jug\u201d_)\n\n The rain is falling, falling fast,\n So swift it rushes down apace,\n \u201cShush-shush,\u201d it sounds in channel\u2019s race.\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cWho\u2019s going to take me home to-night?\u201d\n\n The Cossack who\u2019s been drinking deep\n Sees at the dance a lady smile.\n \u201cO fair one, stay a little while\n And I will see you home to-night.\u201d\n\n \u201cI beg you not to take me home\n Because my husband is a bear!\n He\u2019d beat me when I entered there,\n If you should see me home to-night.\u201d\n\n The music makes a noise like rain.\n The fiddlers play, the drum booms on\u2014\n The Cossack waits\u2014she has not gone\u2014\n All know he\u2019ll take her home to-night!\n\n\n PIGEONS\u2014THE LOVERS\n\n By a river, swiftly flowing,\n Perched Holubka and Holub,[59]\n Lovers, how they kissed each other!\n Close embracing with their wings.\n \u201cThou art my good luck,\u201d said she,\n \u201cI would give my life for thine!\u201d\n\n From the wood an Eagle old\n Sudden flew and killed Holub.\n Then he bore Holubka far\u2014\n Over the swift rivers bore\u2014\n Strewed before her golden wheat,\n Sad, she mourned and would not eat.\n And she sang: \u201cHolub\u2019s not here,\n Now he never will be here!\u201d\n\n \u201cSeven pairs of pigeons wait\n For thy choosing, foolish child\u2014\n Take the one thou wouldest have.\u201d\n\n \u201cThough there should be twenty-four\n Never one like my true love!\u201d\n\n\n SONG FROM AN OPERA\n\n Hard bloweth the wind, and the trees are bending,\n I weep, for my heart aches so, with a pain unending.\n\n My years pass in my woe, and so shall ever\u2014\n Alone I mourn, my folk must see me never.\n\n For when none see the tears, and no one chideth,\n Peace in my heart a moment then abideth.\n\n Else, those around me say with laughter scornful,\n \u201cShe weeps\u2014O well, what\u2019s that\u2014she\u2019s always rather mournful!\u201d\n\n They do not know the cause for tears upwelling,\n Ah, not to them in words the truth I\u2019m telling.\n\n How lives the tree that in the sand is growing,\n When sun and dew no bounties are bestowing?\n\n How live I then, when in the day so weary\n My sweetheart comes not to my heart so dreary?\n\n\n THE MAID TO HER LAGGARD LOVER\n\n Hesitate no more, Beloved;\n Weigh not gain and loss\u2014\n I have crossed the rapid river[60]\u2014\n The Danube I shall cross.\n\n If much longer, my Beloved,\n Pondering, you wait,\n All your wheat in fields shall winter\n Harvested too late.\n\n\n THE TRAMP AT THE INN\n\n \u201c_Mud lies at the door, the door of the inn:\n Thatched is its roof with straw\u2014O it\u2019s a sin\n The money I\u2019ve spent there\u2014the sums untold,\n They might have topped the roof with solid gold.\n Hai, Hai!_\u201d\n\n The landlady and landlord, quarrelling,\n Stop as they hear the tramp begin to sing.\n\n \u201cGet up, get up and fetch me supper soon.\u201d\n \u201cNay, there\u2019s no bite nor sup for such a tune.\n\n \u201cLie down, lie down, such legs can\u2019t bear you far\u2014\n Head to the door, feet where the tables are!\u201d\n\n Then, ere he sleeps, he hears the landlord shout:\n \u201cOxen must drink\u2014get up and take them out!\u201d\n\n He has no hat, so no hat may he don;\n He wears no boots, for they have long since gone.\n\n Three hours before the dawn, unwashen, cold,\n He sees a dark cloud gather, fold on fold.\n\n And soon the rain in pelting drops descends\n Upon the wretch who has no home nor friends.\n\n He looks upon his bare feet, and, with tears,\n \u201cMother!\u201d he cries, \u201cbehold the toll of years!\n\n \u201cWhy was I born, or why didst thou not shrink\n From giving me my will\u2014freedom to drink?\n\n \u201cOne only son hadst thou, whom men call \u2018tramp,\u2019\n Doubtless a vagabond and worthless scamp\u2014\n\n \u201cWhen thou didst carry me on river bank,\n Why didst thou not see to it that I sank?\u201d\n\n\n LITTLE PETRUS\n\n (_From the Opera \u201cNatalka Poltavka,\u201d by_ IVAN KOTLAREVSKY)\n\n Petrus I love, I love so well\u2014\n But I\u2019m afraid, afraid to tell.\n O the trouble he gives, the little Petrus,\n Fair-skinned, with black moustache!\n\n My mother knows\u2014I wonder how\u2014\n That I\u2019m in love with Petrus now.\n O the trouble he gives, etc.\n\n My mother beat me, you must know,\n Because I love my Petrus so.\n Although, my mother, you strike me,\n Petrus will soon be mine, you\u2019ll see!\n If my Petrus is not in sight\n Before a wind I bow down quite.\n But if his eyes in mine should glance\n With arms akimbo watch me dance!\n How I have cooked! I love to bake\n For dear Petrus delicious cake.\n ... Alas, he comes not.... What a loss\n Was all my cooking! There across\n The street comes tiresome Hritz instead\n To eat my lovely cake and bread!\n O the trouble he gives, the little Petrus,\n Fair-skinned, with black moustache!\n\n\n SONGS OF THE POPPY HARVEST\n\n I\n How like to the poppy seed is this world,\n It blossoms, it blossoms to-day.\n To-morrow a stormy tempest blows\n And the flower has vanished away.\n\n O sad for the forests and willow-trees\n That hark to the nightingales:\n O woe for the house of the widow young\n When the voice of her husband fails!\n\n O sad for the forests and willow trees\n When no nightingales awake\n The rest of the little singing birds\n As the rays of the morning break!\n\n And sadder still is the quiet house\n Where the lonely widow sleeps:\n Where the little children none shall rouse\n Since the grave their father keeps.\n\n II\n How sad, O my Mother, how sad\n To think of the roses blown by the wind\n And the petals all swept away!\n\n How sad, O my Mother, how sad\n For the war-horse in battle array!\n\n But sadder my heart for the soldier young\n Who must go for those three long years:\n Must go at the call of his king!\n\n\n BALLAD\n\n Here is a hill,\n And there is a hill.\n And between them shines\n A bright, bright star.\n\n What I thought a star\n My sweetheart was\u2014\n She for water went\n And I followed her\n As I would seek\n A star in the sky.\n My fine grey horse\n With me I took.\n\n \u201cMy sweetheart dear,\n Now what woke thee\n In the early dawn?\u201d\n\n \u201cNay, no one woke\u2014\n When I arose\n In the first starlight\n I bathed my face.\n With the second stars\n I went to the well.\u201d\n\n \u201cO my dear sweetheart,\n Wilt water my horse?\u201d\n\n \u201cI will not water\n Thy thirsty horse,\n Because I fear;\n For I am not thine.\n If thine I were,\n From the bubbling spring\n And with new pails\n I would quench the thirst\n Of horses twain.\u201d\n\n \u201cO dear my love,\n Sit now with me\n On my fine grey horse!\n Homeward we\u2019ll go.\n Four splendid rooms\n In my home have I.\n The fifth one, love,\n Waits but for thee.\n It is lighted up\n For us two alone.\u201d\n\n When they went through the town\n None saw them go;\n When they went on the steppes\n The fine grey horse\n Took bit in mouth,\n Plunged in the stream\n And its rider slew.\n\n \u201cO love of mine,\n Lean close, lean close!\n Till he bring you safe\n To the farther shore.\n Look now, I drown\n While yet so young!\n Good-bye, sweetheart,\n Good-bye, good-bye!\n Heed not strange men\n Who\u2019d speak with thee,\n For thou art young,\n Alas, so young!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cGIRL O\u2019 MINE\u201d\n\n (VARIANT)\n\n \u201cGirl o\u2019 mine,\n Give my horse a drink!\u201d\n\n \u201cNot yet am I your wife.\n Were that my lot in life\n My widra[61] from the spring\n Cold water then would bring.\u201d\n\n \u201cGirl o\u2019 mine,\n Get up behind this horse!\n Ride we at swiftest gait!\n Rooms in my house await.\n The guest-room, O so fine!\n Shall couch this girl o\u2019 mine.\n Girl o\u2019 mine,\n My horse needs better guard!\u201d\n\n \u201cAh, but the road is hard;\n The dew\u2019s on the grass yet,\n My bare feet would get wet.\u201d\n\n \u201cMy coat around your feet\n Shall keep them warm, my sweet.\n And when God wills, I\u2019ll buy\n New shoon to keep them dry.\u201d\n\n \u201cNay, buy no shoes for me\u2014\n Your own might better be.\n There\u2019s one likes my feet bare\u2014\n Now run and catch your mare!\u201d\n\n\n YAKIMY\u2014OLD FOLK SONG\n\n Yesterday between the even\n And the cock-crow went Yakimy,\n Softly went he to the widow,\n None was there to see.\n\n Welcoming, she held in greeting\n Both his hands\u2014\u201cHow com\u2019st thou, sweetheart?...\n It is time, my Heart, my lover\u2014\n Go now, slay thy wife!\u201d\n\n To his wife then crept Yakimy,\n But he found no heart to strike her\u2014\n \u201cYou were married at the altar,\n Pretty little bird!\u201d\n\n With entreating words she pleaded,\n Begging him to leave her living....\n \u201cShe was married at the altar,\u201d\n So the widow heard.\n\n \u201cShe looked pretty as a swallow,\n My true wife, my shlubnazhinka,\n She doth beg so hard for life now,\n How am I to kill?\u201d\n\n \u201cHearken not to her, Yakimy,\n Listen not, young Yakimonko,\n Take a sword and go behind her,\n And behead her swift.\u201d\n\n So he stole behind and slew her.\n Then he whispered to the widow:\n \u201cHow to slay her you have shown me,\n But\u2014the deed to hide?\u201d\n\n \u201cMake a fire in the oven,\n Block the flue up very tightly,\n So the smoke will not ascend there:\n \u2018She was crazy,\u2019 say.\n\n \u201cLater leave her in the forest,\n Say that she in foolish dreaming\n Lit a fire to warm herself by,\n Perished in the flame.\u201d\n\n Listening, Yakimy\u2019s neighbour\n Heard his baby crying, crying:\n \u201cWhere\u2019s your wife, O young Yakimy,\n That your child cries so?\u201d\n\n \u201cShe just went now to the forest\n To her sister for a visit,\n She forgot her little baby,\n She forgot her child!\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n Topmost on a forest nut-tree\n Was the little Cuckoo calling:\n \u201cThey take away the young Yakimy,\n Fetters on his hands!\u201d\n\n At a little inn they rested.\n Yakim drank to drown his sorrow:\n \u201cThrough the widow, curs\u00e8d widow,\n I have lost my wife!\u201d\n\n\n AN OLD FOLK SONG\n\n Grass rustling in the breeze,\n And on the hill a soldier lying.\n His horse stands by the dying,\n Earth to its very knees.\n\n \u201cNay, faithful one, stay not\n To see if I grow stronger,\n Tarry thou now no longer\n But see thou art not caught.\n\n \u201cThe steppes wait for thy feet,\n Then swiftly homeward hie thee;\n Let them not come anigh thee,\n Harvesters in the wheat.\n\n \u201cThose raking would betray.\n So, shod with silence going,\n Thou shalt pass these unknowing\n Upon thy homeward way.\n\n \u201cHaste through the village street.\n Thou bearest naught of gladness.\n Like orphan in his sadness\n Neigh to the folk who greet.\n\n \u201cAnd at my mother\u2019s gates\n The while bars fall asunder,\n My mother comes in wonder\n And for thy words she waits.\n\n \u201c\u2018Bay horse, where is my son?\n By thee lies he then drowned there?\n Trampled upon the ground there?\n Bay horse, what hast thou done?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Thy son was ever brave,\n But cease now from thy weeping,\n O\u2019er earth and water leaping\n Thy son I tried to save.\n\n \u201c\u2018I would have saved his life....\n For this, thy son has tarried,\n A Princess has he married\u2014\n The green turf ta\u2019en to wife!\u2019\u201d\n\n\n BALLAD\n\n Playing on the flute was Ivan,\n Walking by Dunai.\n And Palazhka, drawing water,\n Smiled at him on high.\n\n \u201cIvan, Ivan, my heart\u2019s lover!\n Come down; drink with me.\n Cider of the apple sparkling\n And wine I\u2019ll give to thee.\u201d\n\n Down came he\u2014she on her threshold\n Offered poisoned cake:\n Jelly of the cranberry,\n Venom of the snake.\n\n Came his mother from her sweeping\n As in bed he lay:\n \u201cNay, arise now, my son Ivan,\n Wheat\u2019s to cut to-day.\u201d\n\n \u201cLift my head I cannot, Mother,\n It is aching so.\n Pray thee, dear my Mother, wilt thou\n To my comrades go?\n\n \u201cTell them swift to come anigh me.\n Hasten, Mother! Say,\n \u2018Come, if ye would see my Ivan\n On his life\u2019s last day.\u2019\u201d\n\n Like fine rain their tears were falling\n When his fate they knew\u2014\n \u201cIvan, did Palazhka slay thee,\n Ivan, tell us true?\u201d\n\n \u201cMother, Mother, dear my Mother,\n Haste thee now away.\n Tell Palazhka\u2014\u2018Look on Ivan\n On his life\u2019s last day.\u2019\u201d\n\n Then his sweetheart entered softly\u2014\n Heard Ivan\u2019s demand:\n \u201cOh Palazhka, didst thou slay me?\n Was\u2019t thy mother\u2019s hand?\u201d\n\n \u201cNeither I nor yet my mother\n Slew thee, laid thee low.\n Why didst thou for draught of water\n To my neighbour go?\u201d\n\n\n THE KALINA\u2014OLD FOLK SONG\n\n Was I not once the red cranberry\n By the river flowing?\n My father\u2019s only child was I\n In his house growing.\n\n But they plucked the boughs of the kalina,\n They made great bunches\u2014\n Such is my fortune\u2014O unhappy fortune!\n\n But on a day they married me;\n As I was bidden\n I married\u2014and, my blinded eyes\n Forever hidden,\n\n The world grew dark upon that morning\u2014\n Such is my fortune, O unhappy fortune!\n\n Is there no river that I may drown in?\n Was there none other\n Than he, the youth to whom they wed me,\n Father and mother?\n\n Rivers a-plenty can be found here\u2014\n But dry the bed now:\n And youths, brave, gallant youths, are countless,\n But they are dead now!\n\n\n AN OLD FOLK SONG\n\n As the cherry glows in the garden,\n So she, the loved one, grows\u2014\n So I my love caress.\n There\u2019s a gossiping tongue in the houses,\n The women among:\n \u201cFor the dance she will not dress!\u201d\n\n O love adored, I must leave thee\n Safe in the care of the Lord:\n But a long way I must roam\u2014\n Expect me, Sweetheart, for a visit\n When grass shall start\n On the threshold of thy home.\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cGreen grass has swayed on my threshold\u2014\n Silken grass begins to fade.\n For my love I wait\u2014I wait\u2014\n A dove calls now in the garden\n From the withered bough\n Stuck in the ground by the gate.\n \u2018Oi-oi-oi-oi!\u2019 she is cooing,\n \u2018He comes no more a-wooing.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n IN THE FIELDS GROWS THE RYE\n\n In the fields grows the rye, rye that is green, is green\u2014\n \u201cTell me, my lover, how livest thou, when never my face is seen?\u201d\n\n \u201cOut in the fields, down-beaten, rye lies upon its face\u2014\n So do I live without thee, the good Lord giving His grace.\u201d\n\n On the crest of the hill is the rye, cut high on its blooming stem:\n Down below is a well where the horses drink water drawn for them.\n\n \u201cWith thy breath the water is blown; pray why dost thou not drink?\u201d\n \u201cOf what, O young black-browed girl, of what now dost thou think?\u201d\n\n \u201cI think and I think all day: I wonder if I shall wed\u2014\n Nay, surely this may not be!\u201d the black-browed maiden said.\n\n \u201cFor who would marry me? No oxen nor kine have I,\n Black brows\u2014blue eyes\u2014such wealth what lover would satisfy?\u201d\n\n \u201cFret not thyself, Sweetheart, some one will come to woo,\n Caring naught for gold or kine\u2014caring all for eyes of blue!\u201d\n\n\n AN OLD BALLAD\n\n \u201cMila,[62] farewell,\n For I must go!\n How you shall grieve\n Full well I know.\u201d\n\n \u201cMy lover, nay,\n Be sure my heart\n Will not be sad\n When you depart!\n\n \u201cI mount one hill:\n Another\u2019s set\n For you to climb\u2014\n Thus I forget.\u201d\n\n \u201cWhen behind my love\n Closed the new gate,\n I could not work,\n Nor sleep, nor wait.\n\n \u201cWhen my soldier passed\n The willows thick\n With tears my eyes\n Were blinded quick.\u201d\n\n (As he neared the hill\n She fainting lay\u2014\n Cold water laved\n Her brow that day.\n\n The Iron Gate\n As he passed by\n In a coffin new\n His love did lie.)\n\n Four steeds a-gallop\u2014\n \u201cYoung soldier, haste!\n The deathbell tolls\n For your love so chaste.\u201d\n\n \u201cNay, let it ring\u2014\n And bury her deep;\n For she was not sorry;\n She would not weep.\u201d\n\n The soldier young\n Has her threshold gained:\n Ah, heavy the tears\n His eyes down rained!\n\n \u201cO little white feet\n So dear to me,\n How have they bound ye\n Thus straitly!\n\n \u201cIn Ukraina\n When I went to the war,\n They walked with me\n So very far.\n\n \u201cYour dear white hands\n Tight-clasped remain.\n They rested in mine\n When I marched to Ukraine.\n\n \u201cO you dear thin lips\n So closely sealed.\n How you talked to me,\n And love revealed.\n\n \u201cO my dear red cheeks\n How pale they lie.\n They bloomed like the rose\n When to war went I.\n\n \u201cThose dear black eyes\n That darkened be,\n When I went to Ukraine\n How they looked at me!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cKAZHUT LUDY, SHO YA LIKHA\u201d\n\n \u201cThey may jeer and call me \u2018Likho!\u2019[63]\n I am Vasilyka!\n In the fields I\u2019ve long been toiling,\n Rest I now must seek O!\n In the fields I\u2019ve long been toiling,\n Rest I now must seek O!\u201d\n\n Vasilyka, evil\u2019s coming!\n Wasyl runs to thwack you!\n Not a soul is here to rescue,\n Not a one to back you!\n Not a one is here to rescue,\n Not a soul to back you.\n\n\n BY DUNAI\u2019S[64] WATERS\n\n So quietly, so gently the Dunai\u2019s waters flow.\n A maiden combs her hair, and sees reflected far below\n A wealth of silken tresses the breeze blows to and fro.\n\n So quietly, so gently the loose hair drifts adown\u2014\n \u201cFloat there!\u201d she cries, \u201cfloat onward through vale and busy town,\n But wait for me a moment, wait, ere I leap to drown!\n\n \u201cYou know the veiling willow upon the river brim?\n Wait there\u2014and my sore heart shall come to tell the tale of him\u2014\n No end there is to Dunai; no eyes for me shall dim.\n\n \u201cThe widow\u2019s son was handsome, he loved me, as I thought,\n And look upon the misery his laughing eyes have wrought.\n Ah, Dunai! did\u2019st thou know it then\u2014know that he loved me not?\n\n \u201cO cruel is my lover, Ivan, the widow\u2019s son,\n He rode away, and whispered, \u2018Farewell, my little one\u2014\n The day was bright and fair, my dear, but now the day is done.\n\n \u201c\u2018Oh, sit beside the river, or watch me from the wall\u2014\n I\u2019ll wear the wedding flower some day in banquet hall:\n And you can wear, all sombrely, a thick-enfolding shawl.\u2019\u201d\n\n _So quietly, so gently the Dunai\u2019s waters flow._\n\n\n \u201cI WAS BORN IN A FATED HOUR\u201d\n\n They say I am lucky, that cares I\u2019ve none\u2014\n Yet never was there so unlucky a one.\n \u2019Twill be always the same, while I draw my breath,\n From the hour of my birth to the day of my death.\n O Dame Misfortune, I\u2019m in your power,\n Because I was born in a fated hour!\n\n The spring so pretty, she presents brings,\n But not for me are her gracious things.\n\n My days go on, and my years fly past,\n And I never was happy, from first to last.\n O Dame Misfortune, I\u2019m in your power,\n Because I was born in a fated hour!\n\n I do not count my earliest years,\n Though doubtless they had their fill of tears.\n O future days! If you wretched be,\n Come short of the span allotted to me.\n\n Mother of mine, when you bathed[65] in flowers\n Your baby child, of a few short hours,\n The while the shower of blossoms broke\n Why did not you let the petals choke?\n\n Mother of mine, did you kneel and pray\n In cloister dim, when a babe I lay,\n That all misfortune should depart\n From the little child held to your heart?\n\n \u201cI bore you there, and I knelt and prayed.\n Alas, that blessing has been stayed!\n Ill-luck has come, in spite of all\u2014\n Then take from God what may befall.\u201d\n\n\n THE SONG OF THE VISITS\n\n I liked a girl too much, too much.\n She asked me to come and see her sometime.\n\n So I went to see her upon a Monday\u2014\n I did not find my girl at home.\n She was in the garden weeding barw\u0113nok.\n \u201cAh ha!\u201d I thought, \u201cshe is not at home,\n My little sweetheart is not at home.\u201d\n\n When I went to see her upon the Tuesday\n I did not find my girl at home.\n She was clearing the pea-vines in the garden;\n \u201cAh ha!\u201d I thought, \u201cshe is not at home!\n Naidorozcha Devchina[66] is not at home.\u201d\n\n When I came to see her upon the Wednesday\n I did not find my girl at home.\n She was out in the pastures herding cattle.\n \u201cAh ha!\u201d I thought, \u201cshe is not at home,\n My sweet little rose is not at home!\u201d\n\n When I came to see her upon the Thursday\n I did not find my girl at home.\n So I thought I was lost\u2014I would not get her.\n\n When I came to see her upon the Friday\n She was weeding still in the garden bed.\n \u201cAh ha!\u201d I thought, \u201cshe is not at home,\n My rosy cheeks is not at home.\u201d\n\n Saturday came and found me calling.\n When the door was opened they told me this:\n \u201cShe finishes all her work of cleaning.\u201d\n And I thought, \u201cMay I never see her again!\u201d\n\n When I came to see her upon the Sunday\n I got her that time, you may be sure.\n She was sitting there at the dinner table.\n I said, \u201cI have you, Naidorozcha Devchina,\n The first time for you, the last for me!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWASYLKI\u201d[67]\u2014SONG OF THE DANCE\n\n O they said, the evil talkers,\n I, a maid, should never wed....\n I saw Wasyl in the orchard,\n The green boughs above his head.\n\n _Refrain._ They are mine, the blue wasylki,\n And Wasyl, he comes closer....\n The reason why I like him so,\n The Devil\u2019s Father knows, sir!\n\n There\u2019s a dam anear the river\u2014\n My Wasylko\u2019s gone from sight!\n I call him, he does not answer\u2014\n May he spend in health the night.\n\n _Refrain._\n\n Kneading bread and bringing calves home....\n Where, Wasylko, art thou? Where?...\n Laughing now above the oven\n My Wasylko\u2019s lying there!\n\n _Refrain._\n\n Sleeveless shirt for my Wasylko\n I will sew while bread I bake.\n For my lad, my own Wasylko,\n See the lovely shirt I make!\n\n _Refrain._ They are mine, the blue wasylki,\n My Wasyl, he comes closer.\n The reason why I like him so,\n The Devil\u2019s Father knows, sir!\n\n\n KALINA\u2014THE CRANBERRY\n\n SHEVCHENKO\n\n \u201cMy Daughter!\n Why dost thou visit the grave-hill?\n Why weepest thou; where goest thou?\n Like a grey dove at night thou moanest.\u201d\n\n \u201cIt is nothing, my Mother, nothing....\u201d\n And she went to the hill again,\n While, weeping, the mother waited.\n That is not Herb-o\u2019-Dreams[68]\n Blooming at night on the grave;\n A betrothed maiden Kalina plants,\n Waters it with her tears,\n Beseeching Heaven:\n\n \u201cO God, send rain at night,\n Abundant dew,\n So that Kalina\n May bud forth.\n Perhaps my lover\n From the other world\n Will come.\n Lo, there I\u2019ll make a nest\n And I myself\n Shall fly to it,\n And we shall sing together\n On the bough.\n Yea, we shall weep and sing\n And murmur low\u2014\n Together we shall in the dawning wing\n Our flight to other worlds.\u201d\n\n And the Kalina grew,\n Spreading forth branches green....\n Three years she visited the grave\u2014\n The fourth year dawned.\n\n That is not Herb-o\u2019-Dreams\n That blooms at night.\n It is a weeping girl\n Who to Kalina speaks:\n\n \u201cO my Kalina, broad and tall,\n Watered before the sunset....\n \u2014Nay, but broad tear-rivers\n Drenched thy roots.\n And to these rivers coward-talk,\n Whisp\u2019ring, would give ill-fame.\n My girl companions look askance at me\n And they neglect Kalina.\n Deck now my head,\n Wash it with dew.\n Cover me from the sun\n With thy broad branches\n Shielding.\n Then they will find me, bury me.\n Mocking at me;\n And thy broad branches\n Children will tear off.\u201d\n\n At sundown in Kalina\u2019s leaves\n A bird was singing.\n Under the bush a young girl lies,\n She sleeps, she sleeps, nor will arise.\n Tired, the youthful one. She rests for ever.\n\n The Sun rose over the hill;\n Rose the folk joyfully\n From happy slumbers.\n But all, all the long night through\n A mother slept not.\n Weeping, she could see\n The vacant place at table,\n Lone in the dusk,\n And she wept bitterly.\n\n\n\n\n OTHER POEMS\n\n\n THOUGHTS FROM A PRISON\n\n TARAS SHEVCHENKO\n\n The sun sets; mountains fade\n Into the darkness; the bird\u2019s note is stilled.\n The fields grow silent, for the peasant now\n Rejoicing, dreams of rest.\n\n And I look with desire,\n Longing desire\u2014to an orchard dark,\n The Orchard of Ukraine.\n And I pour forth my thoughts\n As though my heart were resting.\n\n Fields, forest, mountains, darkening still\u2014\n And in the shadowy blue appears a star ...\n O Star! My Star!... And the tears fall ...\n Hast thou then also risen in Ukraine?\n\n Not for the people and not for the praise\n These verses now are written. Nay, I write\n But for myself, my brothers, for heart\u2019s ease.\n Lo, from beyond the Dnieper, as from far away\n The words flow in and spread the paper o\u2019er;\n Laughing and crying as the children do\n They gladden my poor soul, uncomforted,\n Raw, inconsolable\u2014I joy in them,\n With them would always stay. They are my own.\n As a rich father loves his little ones,\n So am I glad and merry with my own.\n Yea, I rejoice; and the good God I praise,\n That He lets not my children fall asleep\n In this so far-off land, but says, \u201cRun home,\n And tell the others in the dear Ukraine\n How bitter \u2019twas to live in such a world!\u201d\n\n\n TOPOLIA\u2014THE POPLAR\n\n SHEVCHENKO\n\n The wind blows through the oaks in the wood,\n It dances through the fields.\n Beside the high road it uproots Topolia,\n And fells her to the ground.\n\n Why has she a slim, tall trunk?\n Why are her broad leaves green?\n The field around is blue,\n And wide as the sea....\n When the Tchumak passes\n He looks and bows his head.\n Tchab\u00e0n, the shepherd, in the dawn,\n His pipe plays on the hill;\n He looks around.\n Sorrow is in his heart\u2014no shrub is near\u2014\n Only a poplar lone,\n Lone as an orphan stands,\n Fades in an alien land.\n\n Who nurtured this slender and yielding body\n To languish on the steppes?\n Wait, maidens, I will tell ye!\n Listen:\n\n With a Cossack\n A maiden fell in love,\n Loved him, but held him not.\n He departed and perished.\n\n If she had known\n That he would leave her\n She would not have loved him:\n\n If she had known\n That he would die\n She would not have let him go:\n\n If she had known,\n She would not have gone for water late at even,\n She would not have lingered\n With her sweetheart\n Under the willow tree\n If she had known!...\n\n But it is dangerous\n To know the future\u2014\n What misfortune will meet us,\n Maidens, seek not to know,\n Ask not of your fate.\n The heart knows whom to love.\n Let it wither, little by little,\n Until it is buried,\n Because\n Not for long are the bright eyes\n Of the black-browed girl.\n\n Girls, O Girls!\n Not for long the rosy cheeks!\n Only till noon\u2014\n Then they will fade, will shrivel,\n The black brows will grow pale....\n Girls! Love ye or like as your heart says.\n\n The nightingale is trilling\n In the wood, on the cranberry.\n Walking in the meadow\n The Cossack sings\u2014\n He sings until Tchornobriva[69]\n Comes out of the hut,\n And he asks her:\n \u201cDid your mother hurt you?\u201d\n Close together they stand, they embrace,\n The nightingale sings,\n And, hearing it, they depart,\n Joyful at heart.\n Nobody sees them, none will ask her,\n \u201cWhere wast thou, what didst thou do?\u201d\n She herself knows. She loved,\n But her heart was sad with foreboding,\n All unspoken, untold....\n Abandoned,\n Day and night she called,\n Cooing like a mournful dove,\n But no one heard.\n\n The nightingale does not sing\n In the wood over the water:\n The black-browed girl sang of old\n Under a willow tree\u2014\n Now she does not sing.\n As an orphan, she hates the white world.\n Without her sweetheart,\n Like an alien, her mother,\n Like a stranger, her father.\n Without her sweetheart\n The sun shines\n As an enemy loves.\n Without her lover\n All is\u2014a grave.\n And her heart beats on.\n One year passed, and another,\n The Cossack did not return.\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cI will not marry him, Mother!\n I do not wish to \u2018live like a lady,\u2019\n Lower me in a grave with those Towels![70]\n Better to lie in a coffin than to see his face.\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cO fortune-teller, how long will I live in this world\n Without my sweetheart?\n Granny-Pigeon,\n My Heart, Nenka, tell me the truth,\n Is my lover alive and in health?\n Does he love me,\n Or forget and abandon me?\n Tell me, where is my lover?\n Art thou ready to fly to the end of the world,\n Granny-Pigeon?\n Tell, if thou knowest,\n For my Mother marries me to an old, rich man....\n But, O Grey One,\n Never will my heart cease loving that other!\n I would drown myself\n But so I might lose my soul.\n O my \u2018Ptashka!\u2019[71]\n Do something\u2014let me not go home.\n It is hard, hard for me\u2014\n There, at home, the Old One waits\n With the marriage brokers.\n Tell me my fortune.\u201d\n\n \u201cSo be it, Daughter. Tarry a while,\n But do my will. Long ago I, too,\n Was a marriageable maiden\u2014\n I know that woe, but it has passed,\n And I have learned to help.\n I knew thy fortune, my dear daughter,\n Two years ago. Then I prepared for thee\n That zilie on the shelf.\n Now take the magic herb,\n And to the clear spring go.\n Ere cock-crow wash thy face,\n Then drink this draught. Sorrow shall pass.\n Run to the grave, nor look thou back\u2014\n Some one behind may cry, but give no heed.\n Run to that spot where once thou saidst farewell;\n Stay there until the moon\n Is crescent in mid-sky,\n Then drink again.\n If he come not,\n Then drink once more.\n After the first draught thou wilt look\n The maid thou wast:\n After the second, a horse will stamp its foot.\n If then thy Cossack lives\n Be sure he\u2019ll come;\n But after the third draught,\n O daughter mine,\n Ask not what shall befall!\n But hearken!\n Cross not thyself\n Else naught of this will be.\n Now go! And look upon\n Thy beauty of last year!\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cTo go or not to go?\n No, I will not go home!\u201d\n She went and bathed herself,\n And drank the zilie wine,\n And she was changed;\n Second and third time drank,\n And drowsiness was hers.\n She sang on the wide steppes:\n \u201cFloat, float, O Swan,\n Upon the bluish sea!\n Grow tall, Topolia,\n Reach higher, higher!\n Slender and tall, aspire\n Up to the clouds.\n Ask God: Will waiting then\n At all avail?\n Waiting for him, my mate?\n\n \u201cGrow, grow tall!\n Look out o\u2019er the blue sea.\n Good luck and bad luck lie\n On either side.\n And there, somewhere,\n My lover roams the fields.\n I weep, my years pass by\n Waiting for him.\n Say to him, O my heart, Topolia!\n That people laugh at me.\n Tell him that I shall die\n If he do not come soon.\n Mother herself\n Wishes to bury me....\n Look far, Topolia, and, if he is not,\n Weep with the dew at sundown,\n Though none may know\u2014\n Taller and taller grow,\n Higher and higher.\n Float, float, O Swan,\n Upon the bluish sea.\u201d\n\n Such a song Tchornobriva\n Sang on the steppes.\n O Zilie Miracle!\u2014she is Topolia!\n She did not return home;\n She did not wait for him.\n There slim and tall\n She beckons to the clouds.\n The wind blows through the oaks in the wood,\n It dances through the fields.\n Beside the high road it uproots Topolia,\n And fells her to the ground.\n\n\n SONG FROM EXILE\n\n RUDANSKY\n\n Blow, O Wind, unto my Ukraine!\n For I left there a sweet maiden.\n Yea, two dark-brown eyes I left there\u2014\n Blow, thou wind, from midnight onward.\n\n There in Ukraine lies a valley,\n In the valley there\u2019s a Khuta;\n In the hut there dwells a maiden\u2014\n Little maiden, wild she-pigeon.\n\n There, O Wind, Hush and be silent!\n Rest above her face in quiet;\n Bow above her rosy face, thou;\n Look: is she, my sweetheart, sleeping?\n\n Or is she awake, my pigeon?\n If she sleeps not, set her dreaming\n Of the one she loved, her dearest,\n Whom she swore she would forget not.\n\n But, O Wind, if she forget me,\n If she have another wooer....\n Die away in Ukraina\u2014\n Come not back to me in exile!\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n And the wind blows on through Ukraine ...\n My heart weeps: \u2019tis full of sorrows ...\n And the wind fled into Ukraine,\n And it never turn\u00e8d backward.\n\n\n THE RING\n\n VOROBKIEVICH\n\n It is about a month since my loved one bade me good-bye,\n Since he went away, and wept, and gave me the ring;\n \u201cIf I do not return from war, but there lay my head,\n This ring shall remind you aye of your true love.\u201d\n\n Early this morning the ring on my finger broke.\n Doubtless the raven croaks, perching upon his head!\n I will to the fortune-teller\u2014\u201cYoung am I, but sad;\n Read me the sign of the ring. I fear that some evil comes.\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cThere is no good news here; this that you see means blood!\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201cO mother, my heart burns up! My heart burns like a fire.\u201d\n The world in her eyes turned black, and she fainted as quietly\n As a flower under a leaf droops in a blazing sun.\n\n In a village graveyard old there stands a cross of oak.\n Under it dreams a girl; she has dreamt this many a year.\n And her loved one from the war has never, never returned.\n In a far-off land, somewhere, he fell into dreamless sleep.\n\n\n\n\n POEMS BY FEDKOVICH[72]\n\n\n WHERE LUCK LIES\n\n You, my brother, stayed at home,\n Threshing out the beans\u2014\n I hied me to Germany,\n Seeking where my Luck might be,\n League on league to roam.\n\n Under Bukowina\u2019s sky,\n Even there I went,\n Passed the flinty Tyrol\u2019s bar,\n Wandered till I reached a star\u2014\n Wandering still am I!\n\n Ah, my brother, you did well\u2014\n Threshing all the while.\n Luck that would not come to me,\n Luck I went so far to see,\n In your beans it fell!\n\n\n THE FLUTE\n\n The midnight fire flickers,\n The embers slowly dying;\n The father sits at the table,\n Heavily, sadly thinking.\n The mother, too, sits quiet,\n Sending swift prayers to Heaven.\n Her heart is filled with grief,\n But she knows not words to tell it.\n The sisters finish their sewing\n By the light of the Kahanetz.\n\n The brother has sought a corner\n To pipe sad tunes on a flute.\n He plays on the flute of Ivan,\n Ivan who the Emperor serves.\n Suddenly, with a heart-cry,\n He stops his sad, sweet playing:\n \u201cIvan, Ivan! It sounds not,\n Thy famous tunes are silent!\n Where, O where art thou living,\n And how doth my brother fare?\u201d\n\n Brushing away his tears\n He placed his flute near the rafters.\n Quietly leaving the room\n He went to sleep in the stable,\n That he might talk with the bay\n Concerning Ivan, his brother.\n\n And on the hot sands of Italy,\n On the green grass lies a soldier,\n Shot, awaiting death, alone, alone,\n As a leaf in desert lands.\n Only the moon is shining\u2014\n Above him proud Cheremshina[73]\n Her buds flings outward.\n\n And he lies thinking, thinking,\n Dreaming of his home,\n Bidding good-bye to father,\n To mother, brother, and sisters:\n \u201cAdieu, adieu, Kateryna,\n With thine undying love,\n With thy so sweet affection.\n Adieu, my golden weapons,\n Adieu, my bay in the stable\n That carried me to dances,\n That knew my heart\u2019s deep secrets.\u201d\n\n Then, low and faint in the distance\n There reached his ears, uncertain,\n The sound of sweet flute piping.\n It drifted into silence....\n The soldier\u2019s head has fallen,\n The stars have faded away.\n\n On Sunday in the village\n Gather Ivan\u2019s companions.\n \u201cBrothers, come, let us play it,\n The famous flute of Ivan\u2019s!\u201d\n How vain were all their efforts;\n \u2019Twas dumb, as dumb as ever.\n\n And on the hot sands of Italy,\n Under the boughs of Cheremshina,\n What does he dream, Ivan?\n Does he dream of the bay,\n Or of Kateryna?\n\n\n TWO ETCHINGS\n\n\n I. HOLY EVE\n\n The bell rings, rings, rings!\n The whole city is ablaze with light,\n Light dazzling as the heavens.\n Even in the barracks the echoes ring,\n Although it is all dark and quiet within.\n One soldier alone stands in a ray of light;\n He leans against a pillar sadly,\n As if it were indeed his coffin.\n He raises tearful eyes to Heaven,\n As though he would entreat the stars:\n The stars for him shine very brightly,\n Gleam houses beautiful and merry.\n Why then a heart so faint and weary\n If there is naught to cause it anguish?\n How can I know?... I dare not ask him ...\n See how his brows are frowning ever\u2014\n Who knows the trouble of the soldier?\n\n\n II. IN CHURCH\n\n Sad and quiet is the House of God,\n Stillness holds all and is held there.\n Only the old priest reads prayers from a book;\n A lonely candle is dying fast.\n From the walls the statues of gold\n Look down with a wondering stare.\n\n And on the stones, on the cold pavement,\n What do I see?\n A young, dead soldier resting in a coffin,\n No sister lamenting, nor mother fainting with grief;\n Just a candle, dropping its wax-like tears,\n And the stare of the statues,\n And the priest saying prayers for the dead,\n A last kiss beseeching for the dead orphan;\n But none goes to kiss him. And no one will.\n The black cover is nailed on; the candle, melting, falls.\n (No sister lamenting, nor mother fainting with grief!)\n This is a soldier, an orphan\u2014then who should mourn?\n\n\n THE RECRUIT\n\n In the great Emperor\u2019s courtyard\n He stood at his post on the pavement.\n He washed his face and dried it\n As the duck her wings in water.\n He washed his face with his tears\u2014\n None saw or heard in the silence.\n\n He leaned his head on the bayonet\n And slept for a precious moment.\n In the great Emperor\u2019s courtyard\n He slept on his sharp-tipped bayonet.\n\n He dreamt that he walked on a mountain\u2014\n O blue was the dream-like mountain!\u2014\n Brushing his hair in ringlets.\n He walked on thinking, thinking:\n Why does my mother write not,\n Or can she still be living?\n\n He heard her answer softly:\n \u201cI would like, my son, to write you,\n But they made me a tomb so lofty\n That I may not rise from beneath it.\n Oh rise I cannot, my Eagle!\n For deep below, on the bottom,\n They have covered my hands with earth-clods,\n With earth that is lying heavy.\u201d\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n In the great Emperor\u2019s courtyard\n He would have dreamt still longer,\n But the bell on high St. Stephen\u2019s\n Rang with a sudden clamour....\n He wiped his face from the misting,\n His bayonet wiped he dully\u2014\n Blood flows on the courtyard pavement\n From the soldier lying dead there.\n\n\n THE HANDKERCHIEF\n\n The sun was drowning in the ocean\u2019s brim\n Red, red as blood;\n And in the crimson flood\n A young girl sewed a handkerchief with gold,\n\n Embroidering in gold with stitches fine\u2014\n (Like lilies white\n Her cheeks will look to-night,\n Like pure-white lilies washed with tears).\n\n And as she sewed she pressed it to her heart.\n Then, weeping sore,\n She opened wide the door:\n \u201cStrong wind, my Eagle, take this on your wings!\n\n \u201cStrong as the Dunai ever onward flows,\n O wind so free,\n Deliver this for me\n Where now he serves, yea, where the heart well knows.\n\n \u201cHe in the Uhlans\u2019 ranks is fighting now\u2014\n Go, Golden One,\n From sun to sun,\n Float on the wind until that place you find!\n\n \u201cAnd, Golden One, when you shall hear one call\n Even as a dove,\n Rest, for my love,\n My loved one will be waiting here below.\n\n \u201cHe has a bay horse, and his weapons are\n Shining as gold.\n Wind, free and bold,\n Fall to his heart, as the rose petals fall.\n\n \u201cIf sleeping, wake him not\u2014and, O my God!\n If slain he lie,\n For your good-bye,\n O Golden One, cover his sweet dead face.\u201d\n\n\n BEFORE KASTENEDOLA\n\n \u201cLook at the soldier\u2019s kabaty,[74]\n Mother, mother mine!\n Is it not red\u2014like blood\u2014to see,\n Or is it like the cranberry?\n Knowest thou me?\u201d\n\n \u201cI know thee, I would always know\n My only son.\n Young as the cranberries that grow,\n Bright as the reddest one!\u201d\n\n \u201cThe cranberry in that deep wood,\n Mother, mother mine!\n For me, for me it does not bloom.\n High has my flower risen\u2014a tomb\n Built for thy son.\n\n \u201cO mother, there it stands\u2014my mate!...\n To-morrow, mother mine,\n In silken grass and on green lawn\n So very early, in the dawn,\n I will bow low.\n\n \u201cTo Hetman young myself I\u2019ll bow:\n \u2018Young Hetman! Sir!\n Wilt bless me, me, the young Cossack?\u2019\u201d\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll bless thee, where the cannons black\n Full loudly roar!\n There will I bless thee, O my son!\u201d\n\n \u201cMy Hetman, Hetman mine!\n I follow, and I die, with thee;\n I follow, dying\u2014let me be ...\n Mother, don\u2019t cry!\u201d\n\n\n TO M. D.\n\n You are a Hutzul,[75]\n And I am a Hutzul\u2014\n The serdak[76] both of us wear;\n Both born in the forest,\n Both christened in the Cheremsh,[77]\n Played hide-and-seek with the Bear.\n\n We knew not where luck would lead\u2014\n If this road meant good luck,\n If that road meant bad luck,\n Naught did we ever heed.\n\n To both good fortune came.\n She did not forget us;\n Her bounty she gave us,\n To both of us just the same.\n\n Great lords she would have us be,\n To dwell in a palace,\n But ah, she was drunken!\n Our Luck was fuddled, you see.\n\n You are a Hutzul,\n And I am a Hutzul\u2014\n She placed her sheep \u2019neath the Shears!\n That\u2019s how Luck has served us,\n And pray who shall tell us\n Just where the blame appears?\n\n [Music:\n \u0429\u0415 \u041d\u0415 \u0412\u041c\u0415\u0420\u041b\u0410 \u0423\u041a\u0420\u0410\u0407\u041d\u0410\n\n \u0429\u0435 \u043d\u0435 \u0432\u043c\u0435\u0440\u043b\u0430 \u0423\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0457\u043d\u0430 \u0456 \u0441\u043b\u0430\u0432\u0430 \u0456 \u0432\u043e\u043b\u044f,\n \u0429\u0435 \u043d\u0430\u043c, \u0431\u0440\u0430\u0442\u044f \u043c\u043e\u043b\u043e\u0434\u0456\u0457 \u0443\u0441\u044c\u043c\u0456\u0445\u043d\u0435\u0442\u044c \u0441\u044f \u0434\u043e\u043b\u044f!\n \u0417\u0433\u0438\u043d\u0443\u0442\u044c \u043d\u0430\u0448\u0456 \u0432\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0436\u0435\u043d\u044c\u043a\u0438, \u044f\u043a \u0440\u043e\u0441\u0430 \u043d\u0430 \u0441\u043e\u043d\u0446\u0456,\n \u0417\u0430\u043f\u0430\u043d\u0443\u0454\u043c \u0456 \u043c\u0438, \u0431\u0440\u0430\u0442\u044f, \u0443 \u0441\u0432\u043e\u0457\u0439 \u0441\u0442\u043e\u0440\u043e\u043d\u0446\u0457.\n \u0414\u0443\u0448\u0443, \u0442\u0457\u043b\u043e \u043c\u0438 \u043f\u043e\u043b\u043e\u0436\u0438\u043c \u0437\u0430 \u043d\u0430\u0448\u0443 \u0441\u0432\u043e\u0431\u043e\u0434\u0443,\n \u0406 \u043f\u043e\u043a\u0430\u0436\u0435\u043c, \u0449\u043e \u043c\u0438, \u0431\u0440\u0430\u0442\u044f, \u043a\u043e\u0437\u0430\u0446\u044c\u043a\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0440\u043e\u0434\u0443!]\n\n\n UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM\n\n (_This anthem has several variants; one of these, seemingly the most\n popular, is chosen for the two stanzas here translated._)\n\n She lives on, our Ukraina!\n Her freedom and glory\u2014\n Let us hope that once more fortune\n May illume Her story.\n Like the dew before the sunshine\n Our foes disappearing,\n We shall rule, Oh, youthful brethren!\n Our land, nothing fearing.\n\n _Chorus._ Soul and body sacrificing\n For our freedom cherished,\n We shall show we are the sons of\n Mighty Cossacks perished!\n\n Nalivaiko and Zalizniak\n And Tras\u00edlo\u2014falling\u2014\n Urge us to our sacred duty,\n From the grave-hills calling!\n\n Let us keep in our remembrance\n Deaths of Cossacks knightly,\n For our youth, our splendid manhood,\n We would not spend lightly.\n\n _Chorus._ Soul and body sacrificing\n For our freedom cherished,\n We shall show we are descendants\n Of great Cossacks perished!\n\n[Illustration: THE LETCHWORTH TEMPLE PRESS ENGLAND]\n\n-----\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n These Pagan songs are very hard to find uncorrupted. In an ancient\n \u201cKoladka\u201d we find such words as these: \u201cIn the forest under the\n oak-tree seeds are planted; on the seeds youths and maidens are seated\n and they sing the song Ko Ladi; fire burns under the cattle and an old\n man sharpens a knife to kill a goat.\u201d\n\n \u201cKo\u201d means \u201cto\u201d; the young people sing a hymn to their beloved goddess\n Lada. The \u201cold man\u201d is a priest, sacrificing the offering.\u2014(Crath.)\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n Kupalo is the dragon-frost\u2014Muroze, or Koschey; he died, and as\n snow-water floated down the streams. Symbolically, the Ukrainians, on\n the day of Ivan-Kupalo, throw his image into the water, and maidens\n fling garlands on the river and judge of their fortunes by the\n progress of the wreaths.\n\n The priests, being unable to rid the peasants\u2019 minds of \u201cKupalo\u2019s\n Day,\u201d adopted the simple expedient of bracketing him with the\n Christian St. John (Ivan). The 24th of June (July 7) is the latter\u2019s\n feast day, but the country folk call it still \u201cThe Day of the Bathing\n of John.\u201d In the Ukraine on that day maidens sing special songs, and\n most engagements are or were celebrated on this feast.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n _Trezilie_: poisonous herbs.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n The Duke, the husband to be.\n\n \u201cAnd during the same three days he is called a Duke and she a\n Dutchess, although they be very poor persons.\u201d\u2014(Anthony Jenkinson\u2019s\n _Letters from Russia_, 1557, as given by Hakluyt.)\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n _Falcon_: metaphor for a lover.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n _Zuzula_: the Cuckoo.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n As the rose in our love songs so in those of Ukraina does the\n Cranberry or Kalina bloom\u2014the symbol of beauty. Maidens are always\n being compared to it, and one sings: \u201cWould I were red as a cranberry,\n for then never was I sad; my lips and cheeks were scarlet, but now\n they are pale.\u201d The German story of the \u201cJuniper Tree\u201d finds its\n counterpart in the Cranberry-bush of the Ruthenians. A young girl was\n murdered, so runs the tale, and her relatives placed the Kalina on her\n grave. From a branch of this her brother made a flute\u2014immediately a\n voice sighed: \u201cBrother, play not so loud\u2014do not bring sorrow to my\n heart!\u201d\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n _Barw\u0113nok_: evergreen marriage flower, periwinkle.\n\n \u201cBarw\u0113nok,\u201d so often mentioned in the folk-songs in connection with\n marriage\u2014sometimes it is placed on graves\u2014is a creeping vine, green\n among the snows of winter. It is akin in meaning to the Polish \u201cmeert\u201d\n or myrtle.\n\n \u201cLittle Barw\u0113nok,\n You creep, creep low on the face of the earth,\n So, O Barw\u0113nok, may my lover ever stay\u2014as close, as near to me.\u201d\n\n On the 24th of June when the passing of Kupalo, God of Frost, was\n celebrated, the girls of Southern Russia made wreaths of Barw\u0113nok and\n mallow and threw them into the streams. If a garland were sucked down\n beneath the waters death was the omen, while if it floated the maiden\n to whom it belonged would be wed within the year.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n _Kryschati_: crossed, in allusion to its appearance.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n This rich bread, ornamented with braiding and other decorations, is\n the chief feature at the wedding feast.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n _Pava_: pea-hen.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n _Ruta_: mint\u2014emblem of virginity.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n _Solo\u2019wi_: nightingale.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n \u201cUnmarried Ukrainian girls wear their back hair hanging in a long\n single plait, adorned with ribbons, and sometimes covered with\n flowers. This plait, called kosa, is a maiden\u2019s chief ornament, the\n cherished object of her care. Its unplaiting is the sign of the change\n which is coming upon her. The married women wear their hair in two\n plaits wound round the head and covered by a kerchief.\u201d\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n _Pan_: a noble.\n\n \u201cPan Kanovsky\u201d is a type of the insolence of power in the days of\n feudalism in the Ukraine. Then great \u201cpans\u201d or lords had their harems\n as much as any Turk. This particular landlord who owned the town of\n Bohuslav is a semi-historical personage. Many incidents centre round\n him. He is once said to have met an old woman picking up fallen wood\n in his domain. He ordered her to climb a tree and call \u201cCuckoo.\u201d When\n she did so, he fired at her and brought her to the ground. Another\n little habit of his was to stick a needle and thread in the lapel of\n his coat and ask each peasant whom he met: \u201cHave you needle and\n thread?\u201d (_i.e._ the means to mend your clothes). If they said \u201cNo,\u201d\n as of course they did, he proceeded to beat them soundly for being\n improvident creatures.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n _Pava_: pea-hen.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n _Haspid_: Basilisk and Haspid were serpents.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n _Chort_: a swamp-devil.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n _Meassiatz_: crescent, or month.\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n The Hetman Mazeppa, who was himself a Kobzar, composed this song among\n others. The story goes that when he was an old man he visited an\n Ukrainian official, set in high places, named Kotchubei. When he\n played on the kobza and sang of the ancient glories of the Ukraine,\n Kotchubei\u2019s young daughter, like Desdemona, listened entranced, and\n finally asked him to marry her. He refused, saying that he was too\n old, but nevertheless she fled to him, bringing tragedy on her house.\n Ultimately she went insane, when Mazeppa took refuge with the Turks\n after the battle of Poltava.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n \u201cTchyka-Bird\u201d is the poetical name for the Ukraine. The plaintive cry\n of this bird\u2014\u201cki-hi\u201d\u2014makes the hearer feel that the Tchyka, or\n \u201cMother,\u201d so devoted a parent, is full of woe. She is here compared to\n unhappy Ukraine.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n The Tartars played the same part in Ukrainian history as the Indians\n in America. They established their kingdom in the Crimea and time\n after time invaded Ukraine, pillaging it, and selling the inhabitants\n in Turkish slave markets. Later, they intermarried largely with the\n Ukrainians.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n Many legends centre around the Cossack Bida (or Bighda), an Ukrainian\n Prince, whose real name was Dmitro Vishnivetzki. He it was who\n established \u201cSeech\u201d\u2014the ancient stronghold of the Cossacks. He became\n famous for his raids on the Turks. The verses above given were written\n of one of his most noted exploits, if tradition is to be believed. He\n was captured by the Turks. Told that he was to marry the Sultan\u2019s\n daughter he emphatically declined the honour, saying that her religion\n was distasteful to him. Now on the walls of Constantinople there were\n huge iron hooks and the Sultan commanded his soldiers to hang Bida\n from these by the ribs. By a ruse his servant came near him and\n managed to bring him a bow and arrow, as directed. When the Sultan\n came to see if he had had a change of heart the Prince raised his\n weapon and killed the Sultan, his wife, and his daughter.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n _Tchyka-bird_: the poetical name of Ukraina.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n _Litv\u00e0_: Lithuania.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n _Teren-bush_: thorn.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n _Deebrova_: oak forest.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n _Solam\u00e0kha_: flour mixed with water. Cossacks on the march \u201ctravelled\n light\u201d and were content, nay proud, of the meagre fare mentioned.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n _Yanichars_: slaves of the Turks.\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n _Zaporogians_: at the mouth of the Dnieper river was an island called\n Hortitsa; Count Dmitro Vishnivetzki (Baida) placed there two thousand\n Cossacks in a fortress to protect Ukraina from the invasion of the\n Tartars. Then this fortress\u2014called \u201cSeech\u201d\u2014became the refuge of every\n kind of outlaw from Poland and the Ukraine. Later a semi-monastic\n order of Knights was organised to fight unbelievers. Time passed, and\n \u201cSeech\u201d became a military high school for Eastern Europe. The Cossacks\n fought to keep the Tartars in the Crimea and made raids on Turkey,\n with Constantinople as special objective. When the Town Cossacks\n revolted against Poland, the Zaporogian Cossacks joined them and their\n stronghold became the refuge of Ukrainian democracy. In 1775 Seech was\n destroyed by Catherine II.\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n _I.e._ his skin.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n Kerchief.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n In the Ukraine at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the\n nineteenth century the Oprishki, or outlaws of the Carpathians, and\n the robbers of the Ukraine, were so famed that in several instances\n they have become legendary heroes. History gives us three great\n outlaws: In the Poltava Government, Harkusha; in Kiev, Karmeluk; and\n in the Carpathians, where the tongue of the Hutzuls was spoken, Alexa\n Dobush. These brigands were like our English Robin Hood, robbing only\n the rich and dividing the spoil among the poor.\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n _Topeer_: Hutzul weapon, stick with iron barb, a battle-axe.\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n _Legini_: young, unmarried men.\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n _Kooty and Kossiev_: neighbouring towns in the Carpathians.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n _Postoli_: moccasins.\n\nFootnote 38:\n\n _Povoloki_: ribbons to wind round the legs.\n\nFootnote 39:\n\n _Oprishki_: outlaws in the Carpathians.\n\nFootnote 40:\n\n _Horeevka_: whisky.\n\nFootnote 41:\n\n _Sopeevka_: a fife.\n\nFootnote 42:\n\n _Chorts_: little devils.\n\nFootnote 43:\n\n _Kolomea_: the capital of the county of Pocootie, in Galicia, where\n outlaws were executed.\n\nFootnote 44:\n\n When a girl becomes engaged she binds on the head of her lover a\n handkerchief embroidered in gay colours by her own hands.\n\nFootnote 45:\n\n _Unplaiting the hair_: custom of a bride-to-be.\n\nFootnote 46:\n\n _Tchumaki_: road merchants, traders in other lands.\n\nFootnote 47:\n\n _Shinkarka_: wife of the landlord.\n\nFootnote 48:\n\n _Zhupan_: overcoat.\n\nFootnote 49:\n\n _Zloty_: 7\u00bd cents.\n\nFootnote 50:\n\n _Mohyla_: grave-hill.\n\nFootnote 51:\n\n _Moldavia_: Roumania.\n\nFootnote 52:\n\n _Povna rozha_: the mallow. On the Day of Kupalo, the old Pagan god of\n the Ukraine, maidens thread the mallow flowers together and make a\n wreath which they throw on the water. If it floats the damsel will be\n married; if it stops, she will not be wed that year; if swept under by\n the current, she will herself die.\n\nFootnote 53:\n\n _Dunai_: river. The age of the song can be determined, as in many\n other cases, by the use of this word.\n\nFootnote 54:\n\n It is the custom of Ukraina to cover its dead soldiers with a red silk\n kerchief.\n\nFootnote 55:\n\n _Wechernyci_: evening party or assembly.\n\nFootnote 56:\n\n _Falcon_: beloved one.\n\nFootnote 57:\n\n In Bukowina it used to be too often the fate of the girl of sixteen or\n thereabouts to be \u201cthrown to a lover\u201d of her mother\u2019s choice\n regardless of her own passion for another. \u201cMothers in Austria are\n like step-mothers,\u201d said a Ruthenian girl to the writer in explanation\n of this poem. Many a young girl has drowned herself when she found\n that her dreams of happiness might not come true.\n\nFootnote 58:\n\n _Hromada_: the whole parish.\n\nFootnote 59:\n\n _Holub_: he-pigeon.\n\nFootnote 60:\n\n _The rapid river_: River of Youth.\n\nFootnote 61:\n\n _Widra_: pails.\n\nFootnote 62:\n\n _Mila_: dear one.\n\nFootnote 63:\n\n Verbatim: \u201clikha,\u201d fem. of \u201clikho.\u201d The adjective \u201clikho\u201d has two\n opposite meanings, sometimes signifying what is evil, hurtful,\n malicious; sometimes what is bold, vigorous, and therefore to be\n admired. As a substantive \u201clikho\u201d conveys the idea of something\n malevolent or unfortunate. But the peasantry also describe by Likho an\n evil spirit, a sort of devil\u2014\u201cWhen Likho sleeps, awake it not\u201d is a\n Polish and South Russian proverb.\u2014Ralston.\n\n The music for this song is captivating and haunts one; the first two\n lines are slow, the rest of the measure being in quick, lively time.\n\nFootnote 64:\n\n _Dunai_: means literally any river.\n\nFootnote 65:\n\n Boy children bathed soon after birth in water in which \u201cLewbistok\u201d has\n been thrown will be lucky in love.\n\nFootnote 66:\n\n _Naidorozcha Devchina_: dearest girl.\n\nFootnote 67:\n\n _Wasylki_: hyssop. These flowers are used to wreathe the candle held\n by the bride at her wedding. There is also here the idea of magic\n properties in the flowers which the maid, who wishes to marry her\n lover, has planted. This song has a lilting air. The first four lines\n are _andantino_, the refrain _allegro_.\n\nFootnote 68:\n\n \u201cThe Dream Herb\u201d (a species of anemone) is in the Ukraine considered\n as something weird and uncanny. It is called Son-trav\u00e0, literally\n Dream-grass, and has a flower like a little bell. Maidens pluck it to\n place under their pillows in early spring, that they may dream of\n their lovers. But by the rest of the world it is regarded with awe and\n superstitious fears.\n\nFootnote 69:\n\n _Tchornobriva_: black-browed girl.\n\nFootnote 70:\n\n _Rushniky_: long towels prepared by a mother for her daughter\u2019s dowry:\n in case of death used to lower the coffin.\n\nFootnote 71:\n\n _Ptashka_: little bird.\n\nFootnote 72:\n\n The fables and songs told him as a child by an invalid sister first\n turned the thoughts of the Bukovinian poet, Fedkovich, towards poetry.\n He was born in 1834, his mother being an unlearned peasant, full of\n superstition. These songs, heard as a child, he wove into music when\n serving in the army, and to the unknown poet, his sister, is really\n due part of his fame, she having inspired him by her fancy.\n\n After living for some time in Czernowitz and Moldavia the boy of\n eighteen joined the Austrian army and seven years later was made an\n officer, taking part in the Italian wars of 1859, when the Austrians\n opposed the French. On his return to Bukovina Fedkovich found that his\n writings had a wide popularity, and he soon made the acquaintance of\n some well-known patriots who encouraged him to write in Ruthenian, for\n up till then he had been composing in German. In 1861 his first\n sixteen poems were printed in Ruthenian, and a year later a larger\n edition of his works was published. In 1872 he moved to Lemberg, but\n city life palled on him and he ended his days in the free country life\n of Bukovina, dying in 1888. His work is marked by great lyrical\n beauty.\n\nFootnote 73:\n\n _Cheremshina_: bird-cherry.\n\nFootnote 74:\n\n _Kabaty_: uniform.\n\nFootnote 75:\n\n _Hutzul_: Ruthenian Highlander.\n\nFootnote 76:\n\n _Serdak_: short jacket.\n\nFootnote 77:\n\n Or Cheremosh.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected palpable typographical errors; retained\n non-standard spellings and dialect.\n 2. Reindexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end\n of the last chapter.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"Songs of Ukraina, with Ruthenian poems","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":22552}