rkling waters,
Leave the sandy shore behind me, 370
Where the village women bathe them,
And the shepherd-boys are splashing.

"I must leave the quaking marshes,
And the wide-extending lowlands,
And the peaceful alder-thickets,
And the tramping through the heather,
And the strolling past the hedgerows,
And the loitering on the pathways,
And my dancing through the farmyards,
And my standing by the house-walls, 380
And the cleaning of the planking,
And the scrubbing of the flooring,
Leave the fields where leap the reindeer,
And the woods where run the lynxes,
And the wastes where flock the wild geese,
And the woods where birds are perching.

"Now indeed I am departing,
All the rest I leave behind me;
In the folds of nights of autumn,
On the thin ice of the springtime, 390
On the ice I leave no traces,
On the slippery ice no footprints,
From my dress no thread upon it,
Nor in snow my skirt's impression.

"If I should return in future,
And again my home revisit,
Mother hears my voice no longer,
Nor my father heeds my weeping,
Though I'm sobbing in the corner,
Or above their heads am speaking, 400
For the young grass springs already
And the juniper is sprouting
O'er the sweet face of my mother,
And the cheeks of her who bore me.

"If I should return in future
To the wide-extended homestead,
I shall be no more remembered,
Only by two little objects.
At the lowest hedge are hedge-bands,
At the furthest field are hedge-stakes, 410
These I fixed when I was little,
As a girl with twigs I bound them.

"But my mother's barren heifer,
Unto which I carried water,
And which as a calf I tended,
She will low to greet my coming,
From the dunghill of the farmyard,
Or the wintry fields around it;
She will know me, when returning,
As the daughter of the household. 420

"Then my father's splendid stallion,
Which I fed when I was little,
Which as girl I often foddered,
He will neigh to greet my coming,
From the dunghill of the farmyard,
Or the wintry fields around it;
He will know me, when returning,
As the daughter of the household.

"Then the dog, my brother's favourite
Which as child I fed so often,