May

It has been one month, sweet exiled one,

Since you left my sight,

And I have seen the lilacs bloom

With inconsolable grief.

Alone, I shun fresh air,

Whose ardent fragrance disquiets me,

For the horror of an exile doubles

At seeing the luster of nature's renewal.

In vain I listen at the windows,

In the room in which I have shut myself up,

As the first beetles of May

Collide against them with their clumsy shells.

In vain does the sun smile,

For I close my door against the spring,

And wish only that someone would bring me

A branch of blossoming lilac;

For Love, of which my heart is full,

in the middle of its grief, finds

Your gaze among these precious flowers,

And in their scent, your breath!