Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v1.djvu/297

Runo XXIII]

And in March the crow was croaking,

And in days of spring was chattering;

Rather let my singing fail me,

Let me rather check my singing,

Chattering in a house all golden,

Always near to one who loves me;

But no love nor house is left me,

And all love departed from me.

“Hear, O sister, what I tell thee,

When thy husband’s house thou seekest,

Follow not thy husband’s notions,

As was done by me unhappy.

Larks have tongues, and husbands notions;

But a lover’s heart is greater.

“I was as a flower that flourished,

As a wild rose in the thicket,

And I grew as grows a sapling,

Grew into a slender maiden.

I was beauteous as a berry,

Rustling in its golden beauty;

In my father’s yard a duckling,

On my mother’s floor a gosling,

Water-bird unto my brother,

And a goldfinch to my sister.

Flowerlike walked I on the pathway,

As upon the plain the raspberry,

Skipping on the sandy lakeshore,

Dancing on the flower-clad hillocks,

Singing loud in every valley,

Carolling on every hill-top,

Sporting in the leafy forests,

In the charming woods rejoicing.

“As the trap the fox-mouth seizes,

And the tongue entraps the ermine,

Towards a man inclines a maiden,

And the ways of other households.

So created is the maiden,

That the daughter’s inclination

Leads her married, as step-daughter,

As the slave of husband’s mother.