Classic Poem

Then farewell, O my swallows, farewell!
You are leaving, soon you will be gone
into countries far from us away.
Here the crimson summer time is done.
Now the garden's withering, only stay
my geraniums, and they but a few.

Then farewell, O my swallows, farewell!

Here the rose tree yields us no more roses. . . .
'Long the Nile bank roses you will find.
You'll be flying over the mimosas
desert-grown, and near the olive-twined
Achilleum remote, on Corf u .

Oh, if, swallows, I too might, might well ...

You, perchance, now sing of heroes dead
in these dawnings, from your loggias high,
while I listen to the low words said
in your Gypsy language, as you fly,
in a language we no longer know.

Oh, if, swallows, I too might, might well ...

Or, perchance, it is the final word
to your fledglings for their distant flight.
Perched against the wall the children heard,
and, with one cry only, from their height
to the nest, they demand: Shall we go?

Then farewell, O my swallows, farewell!

Those that here in March their nestings made
will not be the same ones, it may seem,
that, perchance, to build again will raid
high roof margins o'er the Orso stream,
which is still now, but roared loudly then.

Then farewell, O my swallows, farewell!

But there'll be the same old flying still,
but there'll be the same old calling free;
new delight the same sunshine will fill;
in the nests the same old love will be;
that which has been shall all be again.

Oh, if, swallows, I too might, might well ...

here within this home of mine, my nest,
might have with me my four swallows small,
which in the sweet nights with me would rest,
which on one sad day would leave me, all,
to go forth to a freedom serene!

Oh, if, swallows, I too might, might well ...

faring forth on your wings, keen to learn,
finding so the dawning of my day,
might be singing alway my return,
while I build my work anew alway,
my return from the regions unseen!