Blue Eyed Girl
Hey, you fortune! Just my luck!
Mother Mary! My stinging grief!
Can I tell? What’s more be heard?
God has called it. So it’ll be!
Ain’t I got head scarves cut so fine?
Ain’t I young and got no spots?
Ain’t I shaped like a slender tree stem?
My delicate blouses, richly embroidered?
Ain’t I up with the first cock crowing
Sweeping wide yards with my hair in a garland
What about my songs so lithely fashioned
For every village dance and rally?
What’s the use of my mulberry eyes?
Dark silky eyebrows? Satin hair?
He don’t even see them, mother dear!
I saw him round my uncle’s this very day
Driving cattle out to graze.
His face was wax and white as clay.
He just clammed up and dodged my sight.
And then I realised – just my luck!
He’s in love with that pretty blue eyes
Who lay in another’s arms last night.
Elizaveta Bagryana
translation by Christopher Buxton