If on my grave the summer grass were growing,
Or heedless winter winds across it blowing,
Through joyous June, or desolate December,
How long, sweetheart, how long would you remember —
⁠How long, dear love, how long?

For brightest eyes would open to the summer,
And sweetest smiles would greet the sweet new-comer,
And on young lips grow kisses for the taking,
When all the summer buds to bloom are breaking —
⁠How long, dear love, how long?

To the dim land where sad-eyed ghosts walk only,
Where lips are cold, and waiting hearts are lonely,
I would not call you from your youth’s warm blisses,
Fill up your glass and crown it with new kisses —
⁠How long, dear love, how long?

Too gay in June you might be to regret me,
And living lips might woo you to forget me;
But ah, sweetheart, I think you would remember
When winds were weary in your life’s December —
⁠So long, dear love, so long.

No depth, dear love, for thee is too profound,
⁠There is no farthest height thou may’st not dare,
⁠Nor shall thy wings fail in the upper air;
In funeral robes and wreaths my past lies wound;
No ancient strain assails me with its sound
⁠Hearing thy voice; no former joy seems fair,
⁠Since now one only thing could bring despair,
One grief, like compassing seas, my life surround,
⁠One only terror in my way be met,
One great eclipse change my glad day to night,
One phantom only turn from red to white
⁠The lips whereon thy lips have once been set:
Thou knowest well, dear love, what that must be —
The dread of some dark day unshared by thee.

Immovable, unchanging,
⁠The stars stand in the skies,
Upon each other gazing
⁠With sad and loving eyes.

They speak throughout the ages
⁠A speech so rich, so grand;
But none of all the sages
⁠That speech can understand.

But I that speech have mastered,
⁠Can all its meanings trace;
What for a grammar served me
⁠Was my beloved’s face.

What's this? A tear, one only?
⁠It blurs and troubles my gaze.
In my eye it has hung and lingered
⁠A relic of olden days.

It had many shining sisters,
⁠But away they all have passed —
Passed with my torments and raptures
⁠In night on the driving blast.

Away, too, have passed like a vapor
⁠Those deep-blue starlets twain,
That smiled those raptures and torments
⁠Into my heart and brain.

Like a breath my very love, too,
⁠Has faded and flown, alas!
So now, old, lonely tear-drop,
⁠'Tis time thou too shouldst pass!

Thou art even as a flower is,
⁠So gentle, and pure, and fair;
I gaze on thee, and sadness
⁠Comes over my heart unaware.

I feel as though I should lay, sweet,
⁠My hands on thy head, with a prayer
That God may keep thee alway, sweet,
⁠As gentle, and pure, and fair!