I was so sad and wistful when you and I first met;
Today, I feel less of that unyielding torment.
O tell me, could you be that unexpected woman,
The lovely chimera that I have sought in vain?
O, wayfarer of such gentle eye, are you that friend
Who will return happiness to this lonely poet?
And will you shine on my reawakening soul
Like the skies of home upon an exile’s heart?

Your untamed sorrow, like my own,
Is fond of watching the sun set over the sea!
Its magnitude evokes rapture within you, And
the evening’s allure is dear to your beautiful soul;
A curious and sweet affinity
Already links me to you with a living connection.
My soul shudders, suffused with passion,
And my heart, not fully knowing you, yet cherishes you!

You tell me to hold my silence,
To remain apart from you forever,
And to make my own way, alone,
Without ever bringing who I love to mind!

You might as well ask the stars
To fall into the void,
Tell the night to forsake its shades,
The day to abandon its splendor.

Tell the immeasurable ocean
To dry its boundless floods,
And tell the winds, when they are howling,
To cease their melancholy sobbing!

But, do not expect that my soul
Could uproot such bitter sadness
And cast off its flames
As the Springtime does it flowers!

Everything dies so quickly; the rose
Abloom,
And the freshly dappled cloaks
Of the meadows,
Deep sighs, those we love well,
Wisps of smoke!

One can see, in this insubstantial world, 
Everything changing; 
More rapidly than waves upon the sand,
Our dreams,
More suddenly than the branching frost,
Our hearts!

I may have believed myself faithful to you,
Cruel one, 
But, alas! The most abiding loves
Are brief!
And I say, upon abandoning your charms,
Without tears, 
Just at the moment of my confession,
Farewell!