Quivering woods, starry sky,
my beloved has gone away
taking with him my desolate heart!
 
Winds, may your plaintive noises,
charming nightingales, may your songs
go to tell him I’m dying!
 
From the first evening he came here
my soul was at his mercy.
I no longer cared about pride.
 
My eyes kept telling him my thoughts.
He took me in his nervous arms
and kissed my head close to my hair.
 
That caused me a great trembling;
and then, I no longer know how,
he became my lover.
 
And although he was unknown to me,
I clasped him against my naked breast
when he came into my bedroom.
 
I kept saying: “You will love me
for as long as you are able!”
I would sleep well only in his arms.
 
But he, feeling his heart grown cold,
departed some mornings ago,
without me, for a distant land.
 
Since I have my lover no longer
I will die in the pond, among
the flowers, under the sleeping water.
 
Amid the noise of foliage and stream
I will tell the birds of my sorrow
and will cause the reeds to part.
 
Pausing on the edge, I will speak
his name to the wind, while dreaming
that I often awaited him there.
 
And as if in a golden shroud,
with my hair undone, I will let myself go
wherever the current takes me.
 
The happy times I have known will shed
their gentle light on my forehead;
and the green reeds will entwine me.
 
And my breast will believe,
as it trembles caressed and entwined,
that the absent one is embracing me.
 
May my final breath, borne away
among the scents of the summer wind
be a sign of sensual pleasure!
 
And may it fly, like a butterfly charmed
by the beautiful roses of May,
onto the lips of my beloved!