Who is crying? What lamenting sounds
so sadly through the night?
They are orphan children crying, bowed
beneath their master's might.
Crying sadly, see them making little
fires against the cold.
By the river, see them bending, dipping
bread crusts hard and old. . . .
Sun so golden, will you tell me where
you wandered yesterday?
"I was warming shiv'ring orphans in
the mountains far away."
—Latvian Folk Song
This poetry of despair sprang from the depths of serfdom, in lands where the soil is hard, the sun is cold, and foreign masters have always been harder and colder than either. For...