2. Let me be, o world
Entice not with gifts of love,
Let this heart in solitude have your bliss, your pain
What I mourn I know not
It is an unknown pain
Forever through tears shall I see the sun's love-light
3. Often I am scarcely conscious
And the bright joys break through the pain
This pressing delightfully into my breast
4. Let me be, o world
Entice not with gifts of love,
Let this heart in solitude have your bliss, your pain
6. Place on the table the fragrant mignonettes,
Bring inside the last red asters,
And let us speak again of love,
As once we did in May.
7. Give me your hand, so that I can press it secretly;
And if someone sees us, it's all the same to me.
Just give me your sweet gaze,
As once you did in May.
8. Flowers adorn today each grave, sending off their fragrances;
One day in the year is free for the dead
Come close to my heart, so that I can have you again,
As once I did in May.
10. Dark, how dark it is in the forest and field!
It's already evening; now the world is silent.
Nowhere anymore light and nowhere anymore smoke.
Yes, and the lark is now silent too.
The lad is coming from the village,
He escorts his sweetheart home.
He leads her past the willow bushes,
Talking so much, and of so many things:
11. “If you suffer shame and if you grieve,
If you suffer disgrace before others because of me,
Then our love shall break apart as quickly as we came together.
Depart with the rain and depart with the wind,
As we were once united.”
12. The maiden says, the maiden says:
“Our love cannot be torn asunder!
Steel is firm and iron very much so,
Yet our love is firmer still.
Iron and steel can be reforges.
But our love – who will transform it?
Iron and steel can disintegrate;
Our love, our love must endure eternally!”
