Happy Solstice Season to All!
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THE MID-DAY WITCH. by Václav Jaromír Picek
Bohemian Poems, Ancient and Modern (1849) translated by Albert Henry Wratislaw
On the oak the sunbeams play’d,
’Neath the oak there stood a maid,
Strawberries she gather’d there
For a feast till mid-day fair.
To her comes a lady white,
With a golden girdle dight,
But her loose dishevell’d hair
All conceals her count’nance fair.
She doth to the maiden say,
Wait, O wait awhile, I pray!
If the hair thou plait’st for me,
Thou shalt sometime blooming be.
Sit the maid and lady white,
With the golden girdle dight,
And the maiden plaits the hair,
Which conceals her count’nance fair.
After, when the maid arose,
Gifts the Vila fair bestows,
Little leaves of hawthorn free,
Large leaves from the old oak-tree.
Fleets the Vila, homeward now
Doth the maid returning go;
Tossing scornfully her head,
O’er the path the leaves she spread.
Then at home the tale she told,
As her apron she doth fold,
Ah! but how astonish’d she,
Gold and silver sheen to see!
Then she knows the Vila white
Would the service small requite,
Silver leaves of hawthorn free
Golden from the old oak-tree.
Quiet can she not attain,
Till the leaves she seeks again,
But the leaves alas! are gone,
And the maiden weeps alone.
