Why are you crying, oh sad little wind, and why are you weeping so loud? You should be sitting in your cozy hut, and instead, you roam in the fields?
- My, oh, my! But you... you don't know, my dear, my sweet child! I weep and I cry because I don't have a hut, my own cozy hut, and so forever and ever wander I must.
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
Maria Konopnicka's funeral in Lviv was attended by almost 50,000 people, and to this day this great poet has her special place in the hearts of ordinary Polish people.
Konopnicka's poetry has a pinch of Hans Christian Andersen's warmth and magic to it, and this warmth and magic is not lost in free-verse translation.