Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v1.djvu/315

Runo XXIV]

“Also thanks, my dearest brother,

Dearest brother, dearest sister,

Happiness to all the household,

All companions of my childhood,

Those with whom I lived and sported,

And who grew from childhood with me.

“May thou not, O noble father,

May thou not, O tender mother,

Or my other noble kindred,

Or my race, the most illustrious,

Ever fall into affliction,

Or oppressed by grievous trouble,

That I thus desert my country,

That I wander to a distance.

Shines the sun of the Creator,

Beams the moon of the Creator,

And the stars of heaven are shining,

And the Great Bear is extended

Ever in the distant heavens,

Evermore in other regions,

Not alone at father’s homestead,

In the home where passed my childhood.

“Truly must I now be parted

From the home I loved so dearly,

From my father’s halls be carried,

From among my mother’s cellars,

Leave the swamps and fields behind me,

Leave behind me all the meadows,

Leave behind the sparkling waters,

Leave the sandy shore behind me,

Where the village women bathe them,

And the shepherd-boys are splashing.

“I must leave the quaking marshes,

And the wide-extending lowlands,

And the peaceful alder-thickets,

And the tramping through the heather,

And the strolling past the hedgerows,

And the loitering on the pathways,

And my dancing through the farmyards,

And my standing by the house-walls,