23.

Core of the poem (song):

This is a classic Ukrainian folk pisnia (song) about seduction through alcohol and nature. The male speaker playfully tempts a girl with mead and horilka (Ukrainian vodka), promising to lead her “out of her mind” (z rozuma zvesty) under the white birch and fir trees — traditional symbols of purity and youth in Slavic folklore. He brags that he will make her “not sober” and turn her into a “young maiden,” a clear metaphor for losing innocence or virginity. The girl resists at first (“the girl did not drink horilka”), but the song ends with her already “driven out of her mind,” showing that desire and drink have won.

The second half shifts to a Cossack son writing to his mother while “sowing,” with the girl running to him with butter and cheese — playful rural courtship imagery. He teases her to “deny the Cossack son,” but the tone remains light and flirtatious rather than tragic.

Main themes:

• Temptation vs. reason — the constant push-pull between staying “sober” (in control) and giving in to passion/drink.
• Love and sexual awakening in a peasant/Cossack world, using nature (birch, fir, mountain wind) as the romantic setting.
• Gender roles in courtship — the bold young man leads; the girl is both resistant and drawn in.
• Alcohol as a catalyst for romance and loss of inhibitions, very common in Ukrainian drinking and love songs of this era (early 1900s).

Overall it’s a lively, slightly naughty folk lyric meant to be sung, full of humor, double meanings, and everyday rural life — typical of the handwritten songbooks young people kept in Ukrainian villages around 1909. The tone is playful rather than moralistic; the “fall” into love (and drink) is celebrated, not condemned.