“O Militza! thou our friend and playmate,
Art thou overwise—or art thou silly?
Thus to look upon the grass beneath us,
And not look up to the heaven above us,
To the clouds, round which the lightnings wind them.”
And Militza gave this quiet answer:
“I am neither overwise nor silly.
Not the Vila, [176] not the cloud-upgatherer;
I am yet a maid—and look before me.”
THE CHOICE.
He slept beneath a poplar tree:
And three young maidens cross’d the way;
I listened to the lovely three,
And heard them to each other say:—
“Now what is dearest, love! to thee?”
The eldest said—‘Young Ranko’s ring
Would be to me the dearest thing.’
“No! not for me,” the second cried;
“I’d choose the girdle from his side.”
‘Not I,’ the youngest said—‘In truth,
I’ll rather have the sleeping youth.
The ring, O sister! will grow dim,
The girdle will ere long be broken;
But this is an eternal token,—
His love for me, and mine for him.’
FOR WHOM?
Sweet fountain, that so freshly flows!
And thou, my own carnation-rose,
That shinest like a shining gem!
And shall I tear thee from thy stem?
For whom? my mother? ah! for whom?
My mother slumbers in the tomb.
For whom? my sister? she has fled,
To seek a foreign bridal bed.
For whom? my brother? he is far,
Far off, in dark and bloody war.
For whom, for whom, but thee, my love?
But thou art absent far above,
Above these three green mountains,
Beyond these three fresh fountains!
LIBERTY.
Nightingale sings sweetly
In the verdant forest;
In the verdant forest,
On the slender branches.
Thither came three sportsmen,
Nightingale to shoot at.
She implored the sportsmen,
“Shoot me not, ye sportsmen!
“Shoot me not, ye sportsmen!
I will give you music,
In the verdant garden,
On the crimson rose-tree.”