SEPARATION 

To not forget our loving, should I a sign implore?            
I'd ask for you, but dearest, you are your own no more.
Nor do I beg a flower from in your golden hair; 
Forgetfulness, beloved, is but my single prayer.   

Oh, what a sad sensation, when joy that soon did wane,
Not swift with it to vanish, but ever here remain!
Down quite a different valley does that same river fret;
The long and silent sameness of immutable regret
When through this life to wander it has been writ, it seem,
A dream made out of shadow, a shadow made of dream.
From now in my existence what interest can you hold?   
Why should one count the ages that o'er the dead are rolled?
No matter when I die, this or some later day, 
My wish is out o'the mind of all to I pass away,
And you forget the dream that our two hearts endears.
When you look back, beloved, upon the faded years, 
Let in the depths of shadow  my memory be gone, 
As though we midst our loving each other had not known,
As though those hours of wonder in fact we did not live.
That I so deeply love you dear one can you forgive?
My face turned to the desert you left me all alone
And cold beneath my eyelids my eyes have turned to stone.
And when at last death's soil my body does reclaim,
Then who on earth will know me or know from whence I came?
A chant of lamentation within cold walls will chime 
To beg for me in weeping the peace of endless time;
And I would fain that someone quite near to me then came 
To whisper to me softly, beloved one, your name.
While then ... should they my body into the gutter throw,
Still that would be far bitter than what I suffer now.
Afar off in the distance a flock of crows arise
And darken all the heavens before my sightless eyes;
Beyond the earth's steep margin a hurricane does start,
Flinging to the world my dust and to the wind my heart.

Yet as in spring the blossom do you remain the while, 
With gentle eyes and humid, and tender childish smile;
So much a child, yet seeming each day to younger grow
And of my fate know nothing, as I too  nothing know.

English version by Corneliu M. Popescu

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