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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Florence Randal Livesay, trans.

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Marusenka’s Wedding

Florence Randal Livesay, trans.

From “Old Folk Songs of Ukraina”

The little Marusenka for water to the stone well has gone.

Ere she stooped for the water—strange sounds in the distance!

She drops her pails, smites her little hands,

And to her home hastens.

“Oi, my father, dear soul,

The great raid is coming!

They will fight, they will rob us,

They will take me with them—

The little one, the young one,

Like a red cherry.”

“Marusenka, daughter mine,

Hide thyself in thy chamber

Among the fair maidens.”

“And there they will know me

By my head, by my hair,

By my light-colored tresses.

The other girls’ braids

Are wreathed all with rue;

But mine are unplaited,

And with periwinkle crowned.”