What whispers in your branches,
   You scented lilac tree?
The blossoms nod and bow
As if in an elfin roundelay;
I feel so peculiar as I perceive it,
   As if I lay in the deepest dream,
As if it were my own greetings
   That waft about me, whispering,
   As if it were my own pleading:
"I love you, you sweet one!"

I sang it quite quietly
   As I broke a bouquet for myself;
Now the lilac bush repeats it after me
   With a thousand tongues;
Now in the shadowy valley as well
   The nightingales already sing it:
I love you above all others
   "In joy and also in sorrow."

And into the wide expanse
   The song rings out ever farther,
It passes from mouth to mouth
And to everyone it carries the news
That I, in a quiet hour,
   Revealed to the lilac tree;
And everyone spreads the sweet
   Secret farther abroad,
   The words from the lilac bouquet:
"I love you and send you greetings!"

But no! It is still a secret,
   No human knows it yet,
The blossoms bow and sway
   Mutely in the evening breeze.
But for me the sweet agony
   Of my heart became a dream;
Under the lilac tree, I greet
   "You many thousands of times!"