ntroductory verses are frequently allegorical;
and if we do not always find a connection between them and the tale or
song which follows, it is because one singer borrows these
introductions from another, and adds an extemporaneous effusion of his
own. These little allegories, however, frequently give a complete
picture of the subject. They are, also, not always confined to the
introduction, but spun out through the whole poem. The following
Russian elegy on the death of a murdered youth, may illustrate our
remarks. We translate as literally as possible. The Russian original,
like the translation, has no rhymes,[5]

ELEGY.

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 '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.

P.

Servian songs begin also frequently with a series of questions, the
answers to which form mostly a very happy introduction to the tale.
For instance:

What's so white upon yon verdant forest?
Is it snow, or is it swans assembled?
Were it snow, it surely had been melted;
Were it swans, long since they had departed.
Lo! it is not swans, it is not snow, there,
'T is the tents of Aga, Hassan Aga, etc.[6]

In Russian songs, on the other hand, a form of expression frequently
occurs, which we venture to call a negative antithesis. It is less
clear than the Servian, but just as peculiar. A preceding question
seems to be frequently supposed; as we have also seen in the piece
adduced above, "It is not a swallow," the poet says, "that clings to
her nest; it is a mother who clings to her son." In other songs we
hear;

Not a _falcon_ floateth through the air,
Strays a _youth_ along the river's brim, etc.

or,

Not a cu