Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/71

Rh players and singers. The girls were in the gay rich costumes of the peasants; the boys wore smocks of green and orange and brightest hue, belted by cords with tasseled ends. The boys played the instruments, while the girls sang in response to the precentor, a clean-looking, tousle-haired lad of seventeen, one of the last to be drafted to the front. In clear lusty voice, with abandon of emotion he sang an old folk-song, adding new verses of his own as he strode along. Later he wrote them down for me.

At the window a birch tree stands The golden days are gone Pity us, fair maidens all, We are now recruits!

Why have they taken me as a soldier? I, my father's only son? The reason probably is this, I've courted the maidens all too long.

From the trenches a lad steps out Crying, "Oh, my fathers! All my comrades have been killed! Soon my turn will come."

Why, my darling, don't you meet me In the midst of fields? Don't you feel some pain or sorrow That a soldier boy am I?

Father, mother, dig a grave, Bury me deep below. For my courting, for my freedom, Bury my naughty head.

Three times they circled the village green. Then gathering on the grass before the church, they sang