holiday feelings. That sweet pensiveness, which
thrills so affectingly through their music and poetry, is to them a
species of luxury. A soft, melancholy emotion, not deep enough indeed
to cause suffering, and slumbering in every-day life in the recesses
of the poet's soul, awakes in the hour of inspiration and spreads a
gentle shadow over his habitual sunshine. The peculiar melancholy
_resignation_ of Slavic lovers we have already attempted to explain.
Indeed, it is to their love songs, principally, that the general
remark on the pensiveness of Russian songs and airs is applicable.

We here subjoin some specimens of them. The first is extant in a great
many versions, differing somewhat from each other. We choose the one
we like best, as given by Sacharof:[24]

A PARTING SCENE.

"Sit not up, my love, late at evening hour,
Burn the light no more, light of virgin wax,
Wait no more for me till the midnight hour;
Ah, gone by, gone by is the happy time!
Ah, the wind has blown all our joys away,
And has scattered them o'er the empty field.
For my father dear, he will have it so,
And my mother dear has commanded it,
That I now must wed with another wife,
With another wife, with an unloved one!
But on heaven high two suns never burn,
Two moons never shine in the stilly night;
And an honest lad never loveth twice!
But my father shall be obey'd by me,
And my mother dear I will now obey;
To another wife I'll be wedded soon,
To another wife, to an early death,
To an early death, to a forced one."

Wept the lovely maid many bitter tears,
Many bitter tears, and did speak these words:
"O beloved one, never seen enough,
Longer will I not live in this white world,
Never without thee, thou my star of hope!
Never has the dove more than one fond mate,
And the female swan ne'er two husbands has,
Neither can I have two beloved friends."

No more sits she now late at evening hour,
But the light still burns, light of virgin wax;
On the table stands the coffin newly made;
In the coffin new lies the lovely maid.

THE DOVE.

On an oak tree sat,
Sat a pair of doves;
And they bill'd and coo'd
And they, heart to heart,
Tenderly embraced
With their little wings;
On them, suddenly,
Darted down a hawk.

One he seized and tore,
Tore the little dove,
With his feather'd feet,
Soft blue little dove;
And he poured his blood
Streaming d