European Elegies/Spring/May night
63.MAY NIGHT
The lull of night is laid o'er lane and lea;The wind is mute; but moonlight's minor keyKeeps faltering faint romances.How strange on such a night to sit aloneWhen May is sweet and moonbeams' silver toneIs tuned to elfin dances!
The lull of night is laid o'er lane and lea;Low music murmurs, but the melodyI cannot quite discover.It is a dream long dead that comes and goes,A dream of vanished seasons, and a roseReft from a lonely lover.
And so my sorrow vibrates to earth's verge;The farthest darkness echoes back the dirgeIn stress of yearning shaken,Sighing in pine-tree tops, in sallows sobbing. . .Ah, God, on this May night how sorely throbbingIs my sad heart forsaken!
From the Norwegian of Vilhelm Krag.