Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v1.djvu/303

Runo XXIII]

In the wind my hair he scattered,

To the winds of spring abandoned.

“What advice should now be followed,

Where had I to look for counsel?

Shoes of steel I put upon me,

Bands of copper put upon me,

As I stood beyond the house-wall.

In the street for long I listened,

Till the wretch should calm his fury,

And his passion had subsided,

But his anger never slumbered,

Neither for a time abated.

“At the last the cold o’ercame me,

In my hiding-place so dismal,

Where I stood beyond the house-wall,

And without the door I waited,

And I pondered and reflected:

‘This I cannot bear for ever,

Nor can bear their hatred longer,

Longer can I not endure it,

In this dreadful house of Lempo,

In this lair of evil demons.’

“From the handsome house I turned me,

And my pleasant home abandoned,

And commenced my weary wanderings,

Through the swamps and through the lowlands,

Past the open sheets of water,

Past the cornfields of my brother.

There the dry pines all were rustling,

And the crowns of fir-trees singing,

All the crows were croaking loudly,

And the magpies all were chattering,

“‘Here for thee no home remaineth,

In the house thy birth which witnessed.’

“But I let it not distress me,

As I neared my brother’s homestead,

But the gates themselves addressed me,

And the cornfields all lamented:

“‘Wherefore hast thou thus come homeward,

What sad news to hear, O wretched?