VIII
To her little brother the Duchess cried:
“Brother, I pray thee, saddle thy horse!
Haste to the fields that stretch so wide,
Get for me the horses black,
Drive them before thee on the way back.
Then let them loose among my flowers.
Let them browse as around they course,
And what they eat not in my bowers
The while they do in my garden stay
On their clutching hoof they may carry away.
Let the stamping feet on my flowers fall
That none be left when I am gone;
No joy be there for my bridesmaids all—
So lonesome Mother won’t weep for me:
‘There are her flowers—but where is she!’”
IX
PUTTING ON THE PEREMITKA
(The enveloping hood or white scarf, the mark of the wife)
The white Pava[[11]] is flying—
See all the waiting ring there,
The maids who laugh and sing there—
But all the girls it passes,
Passes by them all
To fall
On Marusenka only.
“Decide now if thou dost regret,
Young Marusenka,
What thou hast done! The maids that jest,
Of their long plaits are still possessed.
They will not take thee back now,
Marusenka!”
X
SONG OF THE BRIDEGROOM’S FRIENDS
“Open the gates—the little gates!”
“Who is it calls? Who is it waits?”
“Attendants of the bridegroom we—”
“Ah, well! Now what may your gift be?”
“We offer you our golden bees—”
“Think you so small a thing would please?
Have you naught else for offering?”
“Behold the great gift that we bring:
The maiden, wearing on her brow
The Ruta-wreath,[[12]] comes with us now.”
XI
DEPARTURE
Clanged the keys on the table;
Outside the horses neighed.
“O my mother, my dear mother!”
Cried the little maid.
“’Tis all over, all over!
No more am I free.
So sad is it to be married!”
And she wept bitterly.
“Send you your dear daughter
Far away?” mournèd she.
“But I follow, my husband,
Lo, I follow thee!
“The man whom I wed now
A stranger is he.
Yet knoweth my father
To whom he gives me!”
XII
THE MOTHER
When the bridal party is going to the bridegroom’s house
As it came to the dawning I awoke:
Swift I looked in the Courtyard grey—
There but now her fine sleigh stayed,
While the prancing horses neighed
That bore my Marusenka away.
“Am I no more your child?” she said,
“That from your side you send me so
Just ere the coming of the night?
Give me a friend in this my plight—
My songster Solowi[[13]] must go.
“For its sweet piping I would hear
At peep of day to waken me—
She, my new mother, will not call,
Instead, she slanders—cruel words all—
‘Useless this bride as rotten tree!’”