Finally, that pearl of German folk-song, 'Innsprueck.' The wanderer must leave the town and his sweetheart; but he swears to be true, and prays that his love be kept safe till his return:-- Innsprueck, I must forsake thee, My weary way betake me Unto a foreign shore, And all my joy hath vanished, And ne'er while I am banished Shall I behold it more. I bear a load of sorrow, And comfort can I borrow, Dear love, from thee alone. Ah, let thy pity hover About thy weary lover When he is far from home. My one true love! Forever Thine will I bide, and never Shall our dear vow be vain. Now must our Lord God ward thee, In peace and honor guard thee, Until I come again. In leaving the subject of folk-song, it is necessary for the reader not only to consider anew the loose and unscientific way in which this term has been employed, but also to bear in mind that few of the above specimens can lay claim to the title in any rigid classification. Long ago, a German critic reminded zealous collectors of his day that when one has dipped a pailful of water from the brook, one has captured no brook; and that when one has written down a folk-song, it has ceased to be that eternally changing, momentary, spontaneous, dance-begotten thing which once flourished everywhere as communal poetry. Always in flux, if it stopped it ceased to be itself. Modern lyric is deliberately composed by some one, mainly to be sung by some one else; the old communal lyric was sung by the throng and was made in the singing. When festal excitement at some great communal rejoicing in the life of clan or tribe "fought its battles o'er again," the result was narrative communal song. A disguised and baffled survival of this most ancient narrative is the popular ballad. Still more disguised, still more baffled, is the purely lyrical survival of that old communal and festal song; and the best one can do is to present those few specimens found under conditions which preserve certain qualities of a vanished world of poetry. [Illustration: _RUSSIAN CURSIVE WRITING._ A public document of Kamtschatka, written on birch bark.]