"Hast thou never, youthful maiden,
On both sides surveyed the question,
Looked beyond the present moment,
When the bargain was concluded?
All thy life must thou be weeping,
And for many years lamenting,70
How thou left'st thy father's household,
And thy native land abandoned,
From beside thy tender mother,
From the home of she who bore thee.
"O the happy life thou leddest,
In this household of thy father!
Like a wayside flower thou grewest,
Or upon the heath a strawberry,
Waking up to feast on butter,
Milk, when from thy bed arising,80
Wheaten-bread, from couch upstanding,
From thy straw, the fresh-made butter,
Or, if thou could eat no butter,
Strips of pork thou then could'st cut thee.
"Never yet wast thou in trouble,
Never hadst thou cause to worry,
To the fir-trees tossed thou trouble,
Worry to the stumps abandoned,
Care to pine-trees in the marshlands,
And upon the heaths the birch-trees.90
Like a leaflet thou wast fluttering,
As a butterfly wast fluttering,
Berry-like in native soil,
Or on open ground a raspberry.
"But thy home thou now art leaving,
To another home thou goest,
To another mother's orders,
To the household of a stranger.
Different there from here thou'lt find it
In another house 'tis different;100
Other tunes the horns are blowing,
Other doors thou hearest jarring,
Other gates thou hearest creaking,
Other voices at the fishlines.
"There the doors thou hardly findest,
Strange unto thee are the gateways,
Not like household daughter art thou,
May not dare to blow the fire,
Nor the stove canst rightly heaten,
So that thou canst please the master.110
"Didst thou think, O youthful maiden,
Didst thou think, or didst imagine,
Only for a night to wander,
In the morn again returning?
'Tis not for one night thou goest,
Not for one night, not for two nights,
For a longer time thou goest.
Thou for months and days hast vanished,
Lifelong from thy father's dwelling,
For the lifetime of thy mother,120
And the yard will then be longer,
And the threshold lifted higher,
If again thou ever earnest,
To thy former home returning."
Now the hapless girl was sighing,
Piteously she sighed and panted,
And her heart was filled with trouble,
In her eyes the tears were standing,
And at length she spoke as follows:
"Thus I thought, and thus imagined,130
And throughout my life imagined,
Said throughout my years of childhood,
Thou art not as maid a lady
In the wardship of thy parents,
In the meadows of thy father,
In thy aged mother's dwelling.
Thou wilt only be a lady
When thy husband's home thou seekest,
Resting one foot on the threshold,
In his sledge the other placing,140
Then thy head thou liftest higher,
And thy ears thou liftest higher.
"This throughout my life I wished for,
All my youthful days I hoped for,
And throughout the year I wished it,
Like the coming of the summer.
Now my hope has found fulfilment;
Near the time of my departure;
One foot resting on the threshold,
In my husband's sledge the other,150
But I do not yet know rightly,
If my mind has not been altered.
Not with joyful thoughts I wander
Nor do I depart with pleasure
From the golden home beloved,
Where I passed my life in childhood,
Where I passed my days of girlhood,
Where my father lived before me.
Sadly I depart in sorrow,
Forth I go, most sadly longing,160
As into the night of autumn,
As on slippery ice in springtime,
When on ice no track remaineth,
On its smoothness rests no footprint.
"What may be the thoughts of others,
And of other brides the feelings?
Do not other brides encounter,
Bear within their hearts the trouble,
Such as I, unhappy, carry?
Blackest trouble rests upon me,170
Black as coal my heart within me,
Coal-black trouble weighs upon me.
"Such the feelings of the blessed,
Such the feelings of the happy;
As the spring day at its dawning,
Or the sunny spring-day morning;
But what thoughts do now torment me,
And what thoughts arise within me?
Like unto a pond's flat margin,
Or of clouds the murky border;180
Like the gloomy nights of autumn,
Or the dusky day of winter,
Or, as I might better say it,
Darker than the nights of autumn!"