Folk songs about trees are never about trees

I have a dim memory that they are about something else--but what was it?

It's starting to come back to me now:

Why do you stand there swaying,
Rowan-tree so slender,
Bowing your head as if praying,
Down to the grass so tender?
Out beyond the roadway,
Far across the river,
Feeling just as lonely,
A tall oak stands in grandeur.

"If only I, a rowan,
Could get to that big oak tree,
I then would cease my moaning,
Bending and swaying so lonely.

"I would hold him tightly
With my branches slender,
In his leaves daily, nightly,
I'd whisper words so tender."

But the rowan can never
Get to that big oak tree...
Poor dear's condemned forever
To bend and sway so lonely!

I don't know




En el tronco de un árbol una niña
grabó su nombre henchida de placer
y el árbol conmovido allá en su seno
a la niña una flor dejó caer.

Yo soy el árbol conmovido y triste
tú eres la niña que mi tronco hirió
Yo guardo siempre tu querido nombre
Y tú, ¿qué has hecho de mi pobre flor?

English:

Upon the trunk of a tree, a girl
Carved her name, bursting with pleasure.
The tree, deeply moved in his heart,
Let a single flower drop to the girl.

I am that tree, moved yet aching,
You are the girl who injured my trunk.
I’ll carry around your beloved name with me forever,
But you, what have you done with my poor flower?

"Dubinushka" or "dubina" means a young oak tree in Russian.

In the bare workyard
Near the mines
And the bunks
And the guards barracks,
There work the dead.
Shaven, shining heads
In the noonday's Siberian sun,
Groans of song from their lips.

"I have heard many songs all around the land
They have told me of blithe and of woe.
But my memory holds just one song of them all:
That's the song of the collective of workers. "

"Hey, Dubina, the green one!
Hey, you, help us do the labor hard, the labor hard!
We pull it, and pull it,
And move it!"

Steel picks keep tempo,
Sledgehammers as the solemn drums
The damned chorus
Keeps in dreary beat.

"Canny Englishmen did tons of gadgets invent
As to do all the labors routinely.
Russian men strive with hands till they're tired to death
Then they sing their hearts with "Dubina!"

"Hey, Dubina, the green one!
Hey, you, help us do the labor hard, the labor hard!
We pull it, and pull it,
And move it!"

The random strike of a rifle butt,
By the guards in red,
Yelling 'encouraging' curses
At those who tarry.

"Oh, new times, come to us! When the workers wake up,
When they straighten the backs from the labor!
When they crush all who suck their strength, their blood,
Crush with their beloved Dubina!"

"Hey, Dubina, the green one!
Hey, you, help us do the labor hard, the labor hard!
We pull it, and pull it,
And move it!"

Pickaxe striking with simultaneous clang
In the beat of
The gloomy tempo of the song
Of Dubinushka.

"Hey, Dubina, the green one!
Hey, you, help us do the labor hard, the labor hard!
We pull it, and pull it,
And move it!"