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

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,490
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.500
“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.510
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,520
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.