SONG OF THE ORPHAN
I will go into the field and talk to the dew; and together with the dew I will bemoan our unlucky fate.
I will climb a hill and fall into thought: I was left an orphan; I have no friends.
In my tiny garden grows a lovely lily.... And what is that to me, if I am still young, if I am still an orphan?
As the soaking hemp rots in the water, so lives an orphan in this world.
O my Mother dear, my grey bird, you have raised me, fed me for these bitter woes!
O my Mother, my golden Mother, my grey dove!
You left me all alone to minister to others’ wants.
What have I done to you, my Mother dear, that you have so deserted me?
If you had drowned me in my bath, my Mother,
I would not have exchanged my fate with any earthly king’s.
How pretty are the flowers that bloom! How beautiful the children who have a mother!
Other people’s children are like dolls: and I am an orphan.
Other people’s children have mothers: and my Mother is with God.
O, my Mother died! My Mother—
O unhappy fortune! She will never speak,
She will never ask me, “What are you doing, my daughter?”
When I begin to think of my dear Mother
Sorrow so heavy overtakes me that I can hardly bear it.
There is no flower in this world prettier than the Cranberry:
No one is so lovely as a mother to a child.
My Mother is now in the grave—there is her grave—
O why was I born—I, so unlucky in this world?