Characteristic Features of Russian and Slavic Poetry; With Specimens  (English, Paperback, Radius J S C De)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FRAGMENTS SLAVIC POETEY. To characterize Slavic Poetry as a. whole, those shorter songs must be considered which are common to all Slavic tribes, and which alone can be compared to those of other nations ; for among the Slavonians, the Servians only, including the Dalmatians, Montenegrins, and Croats, who speak the same language— and indeed among all other modern nations-—tlicy alone possess long popular epics of a heroic character. What of this species still survives among the other Slavic nations, or in any other country of Europe, is only the echo of former times. The Slavic songs have nothing or very little of the bold dramatic character which animates the Scotch, German, and Scandinavian ballads. A considerable portion, especially of the Eussian and Servian songs, begin with a few narrative verses, although the chief part is purely lyric. The following Eussian elegy may illustrate the subject. ELEGY. 0 thou field ! tbou clean and level field 1 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 't is, 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. Servian songs begin also frequently...