Glasha, Bride Of The Sea

She knows the river, net and hook, and hunts it deep as any. Love opens her a petaled look: 'I couldn’t care a penny! You’re better dead.' She shakes her head: her angry earrings dance. She walks in scarf and sarafans she spins from Northern Light! No other finger trains her hair or teaches tress to toss and play, no other ribbon winds her braid but the river’s wave! She moves along the shore and mends her nets. She beams a leaping look beneath her brow like salmons scale a stream! I stood enchanted at the root and dared a timid dream of fruit. But tongues did roll in pub and spire and toss about her name and bandy it in crew and choir and gossip she was tamed. O! 'Who bends the wind? Who drowns the rain? ' Mad I walked. 'It’s all a joke! ' The townsmen puffed their pipes and spoke me silent smoke. 'Who rings her finger? Who braids her hair? ' I faced northwest and asked the air. Suddenly up by my side pops a tramp, sprouted like a tundra toadstool in the damp. 'Give me a drink and get an answer by and by, ' says he. 'I’ll shed a secret on your saucer like a sprig of tea.' So, he drains a glass and drains another and when my money’s dry, 'The icy ocean is her lover, ' he winks. 'And she’s his bride.' I stood up fierce, my stormy fists raged to pound his frame, 'They make a plaything of my pain for fowl and fish to see, the deep pike cackles in the river, the high loon howls at me! ' Glasha busies at her boat, tarring back and side, and shows the sun her mended sail stitched to leak no light. I speak to my heart: 'Above the wave the fish leaps and the dipping drake skims a hungry beak. For your velvet look I’d lay the tundra at your feet and lullaby your tattered coat to sleep in ermine sheets and track the fishes’ mating steps from ocean dance to spawning pool and catch a salmon in my net rich with roe of pearls, and trap you dreams you never dared and what you wished of wildest fruit to slake the travels of your boots through salty sea and scale. You tricked my lip upon your hook and lure of flashing teeth, and now I’m bluffed of coin and keep and townsmen tell me, drunk and brief, you’re promised to the sea! ' Answers Glasha, 'I’m his bride. Look at the river. Restless water runs beneath the wave and hastens to the greyer fathoms where my lover waits. Today I’ll lift an oar and lure a breeze to sail me, unannounced, to sea. I’ll dropp beneath the cloudy night and hug the thunder of his breast till all is dark forgetfulness and dreams of things that come and go upon the sighing of a pillow made of porpoises at rest. I’ll ask my age, I’ll hear him say that all my turns about the sun were seventeen salmon in a wave and seventeen fishscales on a blade. In rolling thunder and chilly light he’ll rumble me his answers and speak to me of life. Lad, your words won’t win a wife for all they’ll ever say of life when I have heard the sea! ' Her ship gained snowy sail at that, cupped a breeze, and drew her on a sharp tack to the sea. I whispered words I soon forgot and turned with empty eyes from what I might have had of life, but for the sea. And felt the fact dropp like a hook that caught and drew a moan from me, 'What will I ever say of life to ears that heard the sea? ' Translated by Anthony Kahn