"O
remain, dear one, I love you,
Stay with
me in my fair land,
For your
dreamings and your longings
Only I
can understand.
You, who
like a prince reclining
Over the
pool with heaven starred;
You who
gaze up from the water
With such
earnest deep regard.
Stay, for
where the lapping wavelets
Shake the
tall and tasseled grass,
I will
make you hear in secret
How the
furtive chamois pass.
Oh, I see
you wrapped in magic,
Hear your
murmur low and sweet,
As you
break the shallow water
With your
slender naked feet;
See you
thus amidst the ripples
Which the
moon's pale beams engage,
And your
years seem but an instant,
And each
instant seems an age."
Thus
spake the woods in soft entreaty;
Arching
boughs above me bent,
But I
whistled high, and laughing
Out into
the open went.
Now
though even I roamed that country
How could
I its charm recall ...
Where has
boyhood gone, I wonder,
With its
pool and woods and all?
Translated
from Romanian by Angela Clark,
University
of London, London, UK.
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