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O JOCUND MAIDEN, MAIDEN DEAR AUTHOR: UNKNOWN PERIOD: APPROX. 14th CENTURY ORIGINAL TITLE: AJ TI, DIVOJKO SEGLJIVA
“O jocund maiden, maiden dear, Please button up your collar tight, Lest I should glimpse your bosom there, And rising longings have to fight. For when I glimpsed your bosom first A fearful spasm shook me through I turned away from all my life I left my friends and lord for you. O jocund maiden, maiden dear, Take up that bucket on your head, And on your arm an oaken pail, And we our happy way will thread Through copse and grove and flowery dell To find a cool refreshing well." And so their happy way they took Through grove and copse and flowery dell; And then at length as day drew on They found their cool refreshing well. The maiden put her bucket down And to the ground she gaily fell And said, "Beneath that leafy tree, O gallant youth, will sleep with me?" The gallant youth replied with doubt: "But we are young and foolish yet For sure we’d oversleep the dawn - Your mother then would find us out, And what a chiding we would get!" The maiden trembled in her plea: "A nightingale is in my breast And yours contains another These birds will rouse us with a song We shall not oversleep the dawn, or chided be by mother." And so beneath the leafy tree They intertwined their limbs as one, They played in joy through all the night, And sure they overslept the dawn. The maiden's mother gently chid, "When beneath the leafy tree you hid, What was it, children, that you did?" |
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