You lived among us, then departed
for your dear homeland far away.
I can't forget how, broken-hearted,
I wept and wept with you that day.
My hands, ice-cold and void of feeling,
strove to detain you forcibly;
with choking cries I kept appealing
“Stay on – prolong my agony!”
You firmly, though, cut short my anguished
kisses and disengaged my hand.
You urged: “This land where you've been banished–
now leave it for a brighter land;
and there I'll greet you,” you kept saying,
“where skies are ever blue and clear,
where shady olive boughs are swaying.
We'll kiss then once again, my dear.”
But there, alas, where sunlight dances
from clear blue skies across the deep,
and where the olives spread their branches –
there you now sleep a lasting sleep.
Your pain, your loveliness too fleeting,
are gone now to the grave below...
but where's your promised kiss of greeting?
For that I wait still: that you owe.