What festival is ancient Rome preparing?
Where flow the crowds in noisy waves?
Why these aromas, myrrh's sweet smoke
And censers all around abrim with fragrant herbs? ...
As a wild flower hangs its head and wilts
Beneath the reaper's killing scythe,
Ill, I awaited my untimely end
And thought: the fateful hour's nigh. ...
Beloved maidens! Playful and carefree,
You sing, you dance and frolic in the glades.
I, too, once dwelt in gay Arcadia,
I, too, in early days found moments ...
Nay, dear one, ask me not to leave thee yet.
Let me a little longer hold thy hand.
Too soon it is to bid me to forget
The joys I was so late to understand.
The future holds but a blank face for me,
The past is all confused with tears and grey,
But the sweet present, while thy smiles I see,
Is perfect sunlight, an unclouded day.
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