Ancient Russian Song by George Borrow — Read

i. The windel-straw nor grass so shook and trembled; / As the good and gallant stripling shook and trembled; / A linen shirt so fine his frame invested, / O'er the shirt was drawn a bright pelisse of scarlet / The sleeves of that pelisse depended backward, / The lappets of its front were button'd backward, / And were spotted with the blood of unbelievers; / See the good and gallant stripling reeling goeth, / From his eyeballs hot and briny tears distilling; / On his bended bow his figure he supporteth, / Till his bended bow has lost its goodly gilding; / Not a single soul the stripling good encounter'd, / Till encounter'd he the mother dear who bore him: / O my boy, O my treasure, and my darling! / By what mean hast thou render'd thee so drunken, / To the clay that thou bowest down thy figure, / And the grass and the windel-straws art grasping? / To his Mother thus the gallant youth made answer: / 'Twas not I, O mother dear, who made me drunken, / But the Sultan of the Turks has made me drunken / With three potent, various potations; / The first of them his keenly cutting sabre; / The next of them his never failing jav'lin; / The third of them his pistol's leaden bullet.

ii. O rustle not, ye verdant oaken branches! / Whilst I tell the gallant stripling's tale of daring; / When this morn they led the gallant youth to judgment / Before the dread tribunal of the grand Tsar, / Then our Tsar and Gosudar began to question: / Tell me, tell me, little lad, and peasant bantling! / Who assisted thee to ravage and to plunder; / I trow thou hadst full many wicked comrades. / I'll tell thee, Tsar! our country's hope and glory, / I'll tell thee all the truth, without a falsehood: / Thou must know that I had comrades, four in number; / Of my comrades four the first was gloomy midnight; / The second was a steely dudgeon dagger; / The third it was a swift and speedy courser; / The fourth of my companions was a bent bow; / My messengers were furnace-harden'd arrows. / Replied the Tsar, our country's hope and glory: / Of a truth, thou little lad, and peasant's bantling! / In thieving thou art skill'd and giving answers; / For thy answers and thy thieving I'll reward thee / With a house upon the windy plain constructed / Of two pillars high, surmounted by a cross-beam.