How, then, were it sang I always Till my songs grew poor and poorer, Till the dells alone would hear me, Only the deaf fir-trees listen? Not in life is she, my mother, She no longer is aboveground; She, the golden, cannot hear me, 'T is the fir-trees now that hear me, 'T is the pine-tops understand me, And the birch-crowns full of goodness, And the ash-trees now that love me! Small and weak my mother left me, Like a lark upon the cliff-top, Like a young thrush 'mid the flintstones In the guardianship of strangers, In the keeping of the stepdame. She would drive the little orphan. Drive the child with none to love him, To the cold side of the chimney, To the north side of the cottage. Where the wind that felt no pity, Bit the boy with none to shield him. Larklike, then, I forth betook me, Like a little bird to wander. Silent, o'er the country straying Yon and hither, full of sadness. With the winds I made acquaintance Felt the will of every tempest. Learned of bitter frost to shiver, Learned too well to weep of winter. Yet there be full many people Who with evil voice assail me, And with tongue of poison sting me, Saying that my lips are skilless, That the ways of song I know not, Nor the ballad's pleasant turnings. Ah, you should not, kindly people, Therein seek a cause to blame me, That, a child, I sang too often, That, unfledged, I twittered only. I have never had a teacher, Never heard the speech of great men, Never learned a word unhomely, Nor fine phrases of the stranger. Others to the school were going, I alone at home must keep me, Could not leave my mother's elbow, In the wide world had her only; In the house had I my schooling, From the rafters of the chamber. From the spindle of my mother, From the axehelve of my father, In the early days of childhood; But for this it does not matter, I have shown the way to singers, Shown the way, and blazed the tree-bark, Snapped the twigs, and marked the footpath; Here shall be the way in future, Here the track at last be opened For the singers better-gifted, For the songs more rich than mine are, Of the youth that now are waxing, In the good time that is coming!