Meditation and Wedding Prayer

I don't sing for little boys who go to school with pride. And have in their hands the Ovid that their teachers do not understand. I do not sing for you, you judges, you full of pointed thoroughness an unbearable yoke to the poet. And you are the pattern yourself. I don't sing to the bold spirits that only Homer and Milton excites. Because the laurels of the inexhaustible masters are only pinched for nothing. I don't sing through pride for you, my fatherland.

I fear those blasphemous tongues that banish you to the Pole. Don't sing for foreign kingdoms. how could I have such an ambition? These are bold author pranks. I don't like being translated. I do not sing for pious sisters who love never wins. Who, when we sing happily, blaspheme that we are not all sulks. I sing only for you, brothers, who raise the wine as I do.

For you, for you are my songs. she sings after her: O happiness for me! I sing only for my beauty, O muntre Phyllis, only for you. For you, for you are my tones. if they suit you, kiss me.

Wedding without a Pastor

The father goes with the son to the threshing floor. Then the son kneels down on a sheaf and loosens the band; there it spreads out flat. The two now stand with their legs apart, the flails fall down on the straw to the beat. And when it clicks and works, the grain jumps. On one side the straw is heaped, on the other the grain is swept. The father stands leaning on the flail and watches how quickly the son swings the broom.

Then he says quietly: "So I'm getting old now. Your mother is tired now too, and a young woman belongs in the house." The youth's face flushed red, right down to his hair. He sweeps the grain and is silent. The father says: "You are a good man. I loved your mother. My father is now resting in the graveyard. He was a good man. On our farm the men and women were always good. I know very well where your heart goes suits you. I have never said a word to you. You need not be ashamed of your choice. With my blessing you will lead the bride home."

The young man puts the broom in the corner without a word, throws the new sheaf and unties it, picks up the flail. The father lifts and clips the first hit, the son folds the second hit. Now the threshing goes on in time to the end. At the end of the day, however, the girl with the apron strings is standing by the fence. And on the way in front of her the boy is standing. Her cheek turns red, the tear rises to her lowered eye. She raises her eyes and says to him: "I want."