The SLOVENZI or VINDES, that is, the Slavic inhabitants of Camiola and Carinthia, have of course their own ballads, which have been recently collected.  That the influence of the German population, with whom they live intermingled, has been very great, even in these songs, cannot be matter of surprise.  It is, however, chiefly discernible in the melodies they sing; which are said to be the same familiar to the German mountaineers of Styria and Tyrol.  Several narrative ballads of some length are still extant among them, similar to the Servian, but rhymed.  These have been communicated to the German public in a translation by their poet Anastasius Grun.  They are all too long to be given here as specimens; we therefore confine ourselves to the following pretty little song: 

  THE DOVELET.[53]

  “Where were you, and where have you stray’d
          In the night? 
  Your shoes are all with dew o’erlaid;
          In the night, in the night.”

  I strayed there in the cool green grove,
          In the night. 
  There flutters many a turtle dove,
          In the night, in the night.

  They have such little red cheeks, they all,
          In the night;
  And bills so sweet, and bills so small,
          In the night, in the night.

  There I stood, lurking on the watch,
          In the night;
  Till one little dovelet I did catch,
          In the night, in the night.

  It had of all the sweetest bill,
          In the night;
  Red rose, its cheeks were redder still,
          In the night, in the night.

  That dovelet now caresses me
          In the night;
  And kissing each other we’ll ever be,
          In the night, in the night.

The field of popular poetry, which the Slavic nations of the WESTERN STEM present to us, promises a gleaning of a comparatively inferior value.

It appears from the Koenigshof manuscript, that five centuries ago the BOHEMIANS had a treasure of popular poetry.  This document exhibits also the extraordinary fact, that almost the same ballads were sung in Bohemia in the thirteenth century, which are now heard from the lips of Russian and Servian peasant girls.  The reader may compare the following songs, all of them faithfully translated.

ANCIENT BOHEMIAS SONGS.

  I.

  O my rose, my fair red rose,
  Why art thou blown out so early? 
  Why, when blown out, frozen? 
  Why, when frozen, withered? 
  Withered, broken from the stem!

  Late at night I sat and sat,
  Sat until the cocks did crow;
  No one came, although I waited
  Till the pine-torch all burned low.

  Then came slumber over me;
  And I dreamed my golden ring

  Sudden slipp’d from my right hand;
  Down my precious diamond fell. 
  For the ring I looked in vain,
  For my love I longed in vain!