Two solitary sisters, who
A brother’s fondness never knew.
Agreed, poor girls, with one another.
That they would make themselves a brother.
They cut them silk, as snow-drops white;
And silk, as richest rubies bright;
They carved his body from a bough
Of box-tree from the mountain’s brow;
Two jewels dark for eyes they gave;
For eyebrows, from the ocean’s wave
They took two leeches; and for teeth
Fix’d pearls above, and pearls beneath;
For food they gave him honey sweet.
And said, “Now live, and speak, and eat.”
The tenderness of Servian poetry is prettily exemplified in another of
Mr. Bowring’s translations.