Detlev von Liliencron (1844–1909)

ALL over, over—and my eyes

Afar are straying in despair.

All over—but the sea-gull flies,

My plaintive escort, through the air.

The gull returns: far, far away

I leave my fatherland behind;

An outcast from my home I stray

Where I my grave had hoped to find.

When yesterday, in parting pain,

Enraged the linden bough I shook,

And heard the partridge in the grain,

A fever-spell my limbs o’ertook.

My ship is pitching, tossed by waves,

The mates are singing while they sail.

My heart is tossed, it storms and raves,

And homeless, I must feel the gale.

’Mid waves there gleams the pallid strand;

Afar through blurring tears is seen

The seacoast of my fatherland.

Exhausted, by the mast I lean.

The lilacs bloom, the swallows stray,

The starlings’ chatter fills the air,

The organ-grinder grinds his lay,

The wind’s light kiss is on my hair.

Before the guardhouse soldiers stand,

And arm in arm laugh damsels young,

While from the school there pours a band

That frolics in my native tongue.

My heart cries out in rapture wild,

Rejoicing my old home to greet,

And all I lived with as a child

Like echoes on my way I meet.