Rises a spring in the daisied grass,
That makes whoso drink of it love—alas!
My heart's best beloved, he drinks it not.
There, by my window, where day by day,
When the sunbeams first brighten the morning gray,
I lean and dream of my weary lot,
And wait his coming, and softly cry
Because of love's longing that makes one die—
My heart's best beloved, he dieth not.
A peculiar character in the Roumanian songs is that of the Heiduck, a sort of combination, it would seem, of the knight-errant and the brigand, with all the legendary attributes of beauty, strength, courage, and generosity of the half-fabulous popular heroes of all nations. The Song of the Heiduck has all the buoyant spirit and gayety appropriate to such a figure, but is overshadowed also by a sort of elfin sadness and the doom of a supernatural fate, which is chiefly to be found in those nations which have a tinge of oriental mysticism, and is a marked feature of the Roumanian folk-songs. The Celtic mysticism, where it exists, is more strictly religious.