O thou field! thou clean and level field!
O thou plain! so far and wide around!
Level field, dressed up with every thing,
Every thing; with sky-blue flowerets small,
Fresh green grass, and bushes thick with leaves;
But defaced by one thing, but by one!
For in thy very middle stands a broom,
On the broom a young gray eagle sits,
And he butchers wild a raven black,
Sucks the raven’s heart-blood, glowing hot,
Drenches with it too the moistened earth.
Ah, black raven, youth so good and brave,
Thy destroyer is the eagle gray!
Not a swallow ’tis, that hovering clings,
Hovering clings to her warm little nest;
To the murdered son the mother clings,
And her tears fall like the rushing stream,
And his sister’s like the flowing rill;
Like the dew the tears fall of his love—
When the sun shines it dries up the dew!
_Translated by_ TALVI.