“O lads, dear lads, be silent,
    Do not my pain increase;
  For since I lost my daughter,
    My pain doth never cease!”

  SUN AND MOON.

  Ah! if but this evening
    Would come my lover sweet,
  With the bright, bright sun,
    Then the moon would meet.

  Ah! poor girl this evening
    Comes not thy lover sweet;
  With the bright, bright sun,
    The moon doth never meet.

The reader will perceive that these Slovakian songs are rhymed.  There are however also rhymeless verses extant among them; the measure of which seems to indicate a greater antiquity, and brings them nearer to the nations of the Eastern stock.[58]

Of all the Slavic nations, the POLES, as we have already remarked, had most neglected their popular poetry.  There were indeed several collections of popular ballads published, partly by Polish editors, with the title of popular poetry in Poland.  But they all, without exception, so far as we know, refer to the Ruthenian peasantry in Poland, who use a language different from the Polish, and essentially the same as the Malo-Russian.  These tribes, inhabitants of Poland for centuries, may indeed be called Poles with perfect propriety.  Yet this name is in a more limited sense applied to the Lekhian race exclusively; and it is in respect to them that we remarked above, that their songs had been collected for the first time only a few years ago.[59]

That they also had national ballads of their own could hardly be a matter of doubt; and the neglect may easily be explained, in a nation among whom all that has any reference to mere boors and serfs has always been regarded with the utmost contempt.  Their beautiful national dances, however, known all over the world, the graceful Polonaise, the bold Masur, the ingenious Cracovienne, are just as much the property of the peasantry, as of the nobility.  Their dances were formerly always accompanied by singing; just as it was customary in olden times every where, and as it is still the usage among the Russian and Servian peasantry, to dance to the music of song instead of instruments.  But these songs are always extemporized; and in Poland probably were never written down.  The early refinement of the language secured to the upper classes a greater or lesser share in their national literature, which gave them apparently better things; although we have seen above, that, far from developing itself from its own resources, their literature was alternately ingrafted on a Latin, Italian, or French stock.  Among the country gentry, and even at the convivial parties of the nobility, the custom of extemporizing songs, probably full of national reminiscences, continued even down to the beginning of our own century.  Very little stress was naturally laid upon them; since the interest for all that is national, historical, or in any way connected with the people, belongs only to the most recent times.  In our day, the local scenes of Lithuania have excited some interest, and the Ukraine has become the favourite theatre of Polish poets.