Ich werd' Dich bald vergessen, teurer Schatz | Ich werd' Dich bald vergessen, teurer Schatz

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by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)

Translation © by Walter A. Aue

I shall forget you presently, my dear

Language: English

Our translations: GER

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And [vows]¹ were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far, --
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• S. Wheeler

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Wheeler: "oaths"

Text Authorship:

by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), no title, appears in Four Sonnets, no. 4, first published 1922 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Jack Hamilton Beeson (b. 1921), "I shall forget you presently", 1992 [ voice and piano ], from Two Millay Sonnets, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Scott Wheeler (b. 1952), "I shall forget you", 1990 [ soprano or mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Wasting the Night, no. 3, Scott Wheeler Music [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Walter A. Aue) , "Ich werd' Dich bald vergessen, teurer Schatz", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2009-01-17
Line count: 14
Word count: 111

Ich werd' Dich bald vergessen, teurer Schatz

Language: German (Deutsch) after the English

Ich werd' Dich bald vergessen, teurer Schatz,
drum nutz ihn bestens, Deinen kurzen Tag,
Dein Monat, Deinen kurzen Halbjahrsplatz -
eh ich vergessen, sterben, wegzieh'n mag
und mit uns zwei'n ist's Schluß; denn dann, demnächst,
wie schon gesagt, vergeß ich Dich - doch g'rade nun,
wenn Du mit süßen Lügen um mich flehst,
werd' ich den liebsten Schwur des Sträubens tun.
Ich wünschte schon, daß Liebe länger wär'
und Schwüre nicht so brüchig, wie sie sind -
allein so ist's, and die Natur bisher
hat nur ein Ringen ohne End bestimmt:
Ob, was wir suchen, wir auch finden werden
ist, biologisch, ganz egal auf Erden.

Text Authorship:

Singable translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2010 by Walter A. Aue, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
Walter A. Aue. Contact: waue (AT) dal (DOT) ca
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Based on:

a text in English by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), no title, appears in Four Sonnets, no. 4, first published 1922
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2010-03-26
Line count: 14
Word count: 102