MY BARREN ACRES
Russian Folk Songs with English translations - p18 #13

Oh my bar-ren a-cres all o-ver-grown,
Long is it since you drank the sweat of my brow!
No-where fence nor stick nor stone marks the bounds,
No har-row's teeth you e-ver know, nor the plough.

Nought I sow'd and all things grow at their will,
Wild roses, bracken, heather, gorse, tangled thorn;
Silver birches push their heads through the brake,
All flourish there, but never gold rip'ning corn.

Mushrooms grow a-plenty after the rain,
Toadstools all summer long grow under the trees;
Those are all the harvest I gather there,
Finding them always as I lie at my ease.

Idling oft I lie and dream all day long,
Hearing across the fields the glad shepherds lay,
Watchful, guarding pastur'd sheep from the wolves,
How shepherds pass the hours away, none can say.



Note: The Russian village community of Mir owned the land jointly, in accordance with the old agrarian law, and allotted it in holdings to the peasants for cultivation. Once in so many years a re-allottment was made as the population altered.