English translations of Vier Lieder für 1 Singstimme mit Pianoforte, opus 5

The maiden comes home from the May dance,
She has fatigued herself with leaping about.
Her mother asks, "Where is the wreath
That I wound into your hair for you?"

"As I was walking through the fields
The wind came along;
Roughly it tore the myrtles 
And the rosemary from my hair."

Her mother makes a serious face,
Furrowing her brow:
"Girl, don't you have two hands
With which to keep a hold of your wreath?"

"Just then I needed both my hands
In order to embrace my Friedel
As we were kissing each other to our hearts' content. --
Could I have let go of him?"

With storm-winds and rain
April departed;
The storms die down,
The winds are quiet.
A colourful arc
Glows in the sky;
May has arrived,
The hawthorn bush blooms.

In the bush by the water-spring
Madame Nightingale is singing;
A tanned lad
Embraces his maiden.
Their blood surges in waves,
They kiss until they are weary.
May has arrived,
The hawthorn bush blooms.

The northwind chases
The leaves of the forest's trees,
In the stormy weather
There is one who sits and laments:
Betrayed, deceived!
The ancient song -- -- --
May has flown away,
The blooming of the hawthorn has ended.

Two stars make me young and old
And have complete power over me
With their sparkling and twinkling;
I also know of red lips,
Ah! At those lips I could drink
And heal from all pain.
But One walks along and laughs
And does not want to understand me,
Just as summer in all its splendour
Knows nothing of the pains of winter. 

The birdlets sing the old song
That love is inseparable from sorrow,
I fall silent in yearning anxieties.
I wish that in the sunset glow 
Pale death would come toward me on my path
And speak: Now you have suffered long enough!
A happy person might well rejoice 
At the sunbeam upon the mountain top,
I lie lamenting in the shadowy valley,
And above, the tree-tops glisten.

Arise, you golden sun
From the storm-tossed floodwaters,
Blaze, fervent joy of love,
Break forth, dammed-up flames!
Without wavering, without faltering
Only a single joy and a single pain
Dwells in wishes and thoughts,
And a single blissfulness.
 
What lives and moves upon earth
And what wanders through space,
What the waves drop and lift,
And what sings and resounds in dreams,
All blowing, all standing still
In the great house of life,
All becoming and dissolving
Is exhaled by the breath of love.
 
If I should live, then I must love,
And, beloved, hear me:
I would rather be driven out of the world,
Than be in it without you!
As from pathways grant me insight into
My fate through your eyes,
Like the quiet reproaches of love,
Endure my mute gaze.