The nightingale

We're on the brink of spring.

The wondrously sweet night weighs on the countryside

spread out limply

before me,

raised by the hills

and stretching toward the distant horizon

curving toward the last glimmers of daylight.

We're on the brink of spring.

The damp, fresh-ploughed earth, the shoots of wheat,

the clover, the alfalfa

and the sleeping flowers breath their perfume.

The sweet, moving, damp earth,

crossed by the murmur of streams

animated by the murmur of streams

and the confused song of the cricket,

stretches out under the firmament of stars.

I'm standing in the middle of a field,

eyes closed, better to abandon myself to the night.

My heart is full of love.

The source of tears and prayers opens in my heart.

I would speak, and my voice would be heard

and spread like a living thing

above the waters' murmurings.

I want to sing the love in my heart

and repeat the name of my beloved.

But who is my beloved, who is my beloved?

Where are you, marvelous sweet one who will love me,

bend before me and give me your heart

to enrich mine and your pain?

Where are you? I don't know the name of my beloved,

and I can only say, "Love, oh love, bitter sadness."

All that, the sweetness of this warm earth

and these stars, this long, calm night.

It is spring. We are on the brink of spring.

The silence is as broad as the night.

Now the nightingale begins

its pure, solemn song.