When from out of the distance, when we are parted,
  I am still recognizable to you, [the past
    Oh, you sharer of my sufferings!
      Can signify to you considerable goodness,]1

Tell then, how does your lover await you
  In those gardens, since after a harrowing 
    And dark time, we found each other?
      [Here at the rivers of the holy primeval world.

That I must say, there was considerable goodness
  In your glances, when in the distances you
    Once happily looked around,
      Ever withdrawn human being, with a sombre

Aspect.]1 How the hours flowed away, how quiet
  Was my soul in regard to the truth that
    I would be thus separated [from you]?
      [Yes, I admitted it; I was yours.

Verily! just as you wish to bring and inscribe everything 
  That is known to me into my memory,
    With letters, thus it befalls me, too,
      That I tell of all that is past.]1

Was it springtime? was it summer? the nightingale
  With sweet song lived with birds that
    Were not far away in the bushes
      And wreathed the trees with scents

[The clearly discernible alleys, low shrubs and sand
  Upon which we trod, made more pleasant
    And lovelier the hyacinth
      Or the tulip, viola, carnation.

Around the walls and rockwork]1 the ivy burgeoned, burgeoned
  A blessed darkness of lofty canopy roads.  Often
    In the evening, in the morning we were there,
      Talked of many things and gazed happily at each other.

[In my arms the youth was revived,
  He, yet forsaken, came out of the realms
    To which he directed me, with a melancholy,
       But the names of the rare places

And everything beautiful he had remembered, that
  On blessed shores, also highly valued by me,
    Bloomed in our native land
      Or concealed, from a lofty perspective,

There where one can also survey the ocean,
  But where no one wishes to be.  Make do with it, and think
    Of her who is still content
      Because the delightful day shone upon us,

[The day] that began with confession or pressing of hands,
  [The day] that united us.]1 Ah! woe is me!
    They were beautiful days. But
      Mournful twilight followed.

[You are so alone in the beautiful world,
  You always assert to me, beloved! but
    You do not know that,]1