Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/77

Runo XXX]

“We unhappy sought for vengeance,

Recklessly we sought for vengeance,

Rushing forth to mighty conflict

In the gloomy land of Pohja,

There our lives to bring in danger,

Rushing to our own destruction,

In this miserable country,

On a pathway that we knew not.

“Never is it known unto us,

Never known and never guessed at,

What the pathway is that leads us,

Or the road that may conduct us

To our death at edge of forest,

Or on heath to meet destruction,

Here in the abode of ravens,

In the fields by crows frequented.

“And the ravens here are flocking,

And the evil birds are croaking,

And the flesh the birds are tearing,

And with blood the crows are sated,

And the ravens’ beaks are moistened

In the wounds of us, the wretched,

To the rocks our bones they carry,

And upon the stones they cast them.

“Ah, my hapless mother knows not,

Never she, with pain who bore me,

Where her flesh may now be carried,

And her blood may now be flowing,

Whether in the furious battle,

In the equal strife of foemen,

Or upon a lake’s broad surface,

On the far-extending billows,

Or on hills with pine-cones loaded,

Wandering ’mid the fallen branches.

“And my mother can know nothing

Of her son, the most unhappy,

Only know that he has perished,

Only know that he has fallen;

And my mother thus will weep me,

Thus lament, the aged woman:

Rh