A summer evening once again
Like I saw it as a child!
The old, familiar lark songs,
The breezes' gentle, cool wafting!
  And there the two bright little clouds!
Ah! did they never scud away?
By the blue mountain there on the border
Do they still hover at the old place?

  The slender poplars, too, they sway
As gaily as in olden times,
The swallows fly through the blue aether,
The moonlight sparkles full of merriment;
  And glowingly the sun goes down,
And shimmering the river flows as it once did;
The greenery along its banks, how it offers
Its familiar, familiar greeting to me once more!

  You luminous, clear, bright shimmer,
Oh, as before, you appeal to me!
Yes! that which a child's eyes
Have seen shining remains, is never lost!
  What was lovely once must be transfigured
Into a much more beautiful form, though it may move off ever so far,
What was lovely once, must endure,
-- Only take heart! -- for eternity!