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Translated by H. W. Preston
FAR, far away across the sea, | |
| In the still hours when I sit dreaming | |
| Often and often I voyage in seeming; | |
| And sad is the heart I bear with me, | |
| Far, far away across the sea. | 5 |
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| Yonder, toward the Dardanelles | |
| I follow the vessels disappearing, | |
| Slender masts to the sky uprearing; | |
| Follow her whom I love so well, | |
| Yonder toward the Dardanelles. | 10 |
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| With the great clouds I go astray; | |
| These by the shepherd wind are driven | |
| Across the shining stars of heaven | |
| In snowy flocks, and go their way, | |
| And with the clouds I go astray. | 15 |
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| I take the pinions of the swallow, | |
| For the fair weather ever yearning, | |
| And swiftly to the sun returning; | |
| So swiftly I my darling follow | |
| Upon the pinions of the swallow. | 20 |
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| Homesickness hath my heart possessed, | |
| For now she treads an alien strand; | |
| And for that unknown fatherland | |
| I long, as a bird for her nest. | |
| Homesickness hath my heart possessed. | 25 |
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| From wave to wave the salt sea over, | |
| Like a pale corpse I always seem | |
| On floating, in a deathlike dream, | |
| Even to the feet of my sweet lover, | |
| From wave to wave the salt sea over. | 30 |
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| Now am I lying on the shore | |
| Till my love lifts me mutely weeping, | |
| And takes me in her tender keeping, | |
| And lays her hand my still heart o’er, | |
| And calls me from the dead once more. | 35 |
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| I clasp her close and hold her long. | |
| “O, I have suffered sore,” I cry, | |
| “But now we will no longer die!” | |
| Like drowning men’s my grasp is strong; | |
| I clasp her close and hold her long. | 40 |
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| Far, far away across the sea, | |
| In the still hours when I sit dreaming, | |
| Often and often I voyage in seeming; | |
| And sad is the heart I bear with me, | |
| Far, far away across the sea. | 45 |
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