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From Part II: Serious Hits, from Humorous Hits and How to Hold an Audience, edited by Grenville Kleiser; Funk & Wagnalls; New York and London, 1912; pp. 274-275.


274

“I AM CONTENT”


TRANSLATED BY CARMEN SYLVA*

[From the Romanian Folk-Song Collected by Hélène Vacaresco]

A spindle of hazelwood had I;
Into the mill-stream it fell one day —
The water has brought it me back no more.

As he lay a-dying, the soldier spake:
                      “I am content!
Let my mother be told, in the village there,
     And my bride in the hut be told,
     That they must pray with folded hands,
           With folded hands for me.”
The soldier is dead — and with folded hands
           His bride and his mother pray.
On the field of battle they dug his grave,
And red with his life-blood the earth was dyed,
           The earth they laid him in.
The sun looked down on him there and spake:
                      “I am content.”


And flowers bloomed thickly upon his grave,
     And were glad they blossomed there.
And when the wind in the tree-tops roared,
The soldier asked from the deep, dark grave:
     “Did the banner flutter then?”
“Not so, my hero,” the wind replied.
“The fight is done, but the banner won,
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
           Have borne it in triumph hence.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave:
                      “I am content.”

274
And again, he heard the shepherds pass
           And the flocks go wand’ring by,
And the soldier asked: “Is the sound I hear,
           The sound of the battle’s roar?”
     And they all replied: “My hero, nay!
     Thou art dead, and the fight is o’er,
Our country is joyful and free.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave:
                      “I am content.”


Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass,
           And the soldier asks once more:
“Are these not the voices of them that love,
           That love — and remember me?”
“Not so, my hero,” the lovers say,
“We are those that remember not;
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled,
     And the dead must be forgot.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave:
                      “I am content.”

A spindle of hazelwood had I;
Into the mill-stream it fell one day —
The water has brought it me back no more.







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