The Water Fairy
Me my mother bore
’Mid lofty palace walls,
Me at midnight hour
In Dnieper’s flood she bathed;
And bathing, she murmured
Over little me:
“Swim, swim, little maid,
Adown the Dnieper water,
You’ll swim out a fairy
Next midnight, my daughter.
I go to dance with him,
My faithless lover;
You’ll come and lure him
Into the river.
No more shall he laugh at me,
At my tears out-flowing,
But o’er him the Dnieper
Its blue water is rolling.
Swim out, my only one,
He will come to dance with thee.
Waves, waves, little waves,
Greet ye the water fairy.”
Sadly she cried and ran away,
As I floated down the stream. [[139]]
But sister fairies met me,
I grew as in a dream.
A week, and I dance at midnight,
And watch from the water pools.
What does my sinful mother?
Lives she still in shameful pleasure,
With him, the faithless lord?
Thus the fairy whispered,
Then like diving bird she dropped
Back in the stream,
And the willows bowed above her.
The mother comes to walk by the river side.
’Tis weary in the palace,
And the lord is not at home.
She comes to the bank, thinks of her little one
Whom she plunged in with muttered charms.
What matters it? She would go back to the palace,
But no, hers is another fate.
She noticed not how the river maidens hastened
Till they caught her, and tickled her ’mid laughter.
Joyfully they caught her, and played and tickled her,
And put her in a basket net
(Unto her death).
And then they roared and laughed;
But one little fairy did not laugh.
[[140]]