Song Translations

Ständchen Serenade

The moon is above the mountain, just right for people in love. In the garden trickles a fountain; otherwise, silence is far and wide.

By the wall, in the shadows, stand three students With flute and with fiddle and zither, singing and playing to their singing.

The sounds steal softly into the most beautiful girl’s dream; She sees her blond sweetheart and whispers, “Forget me not!”

Franz Kugler, English translation by Richard Walters Morgan! Tomorrow!

And tomorrow the sun will shine again and on the path, where I shall walk, it will again unite us, the happy ones in the midst of this sun-breathing earth…. and to the wide, blue-waved shore, we will quietly and slowly descend, mute, we will gaze into each other’s eyes, and on us sinks the muted silence of happiness….

John Henry MacKay

English translation by Richard Walters

Auf dem Wasser zu Singen To Be Sung on the Water

Midst the shimmer of mirroring waves glides, like swans, the rocking boat. Ah, on joy’s softly shimmering waves glides the soul along, like the boat. For from the heaven above, upon the waves dances the sunset round about the boat.

Above the treetops of the western grove beckons to us kindly the rosy glow. Beneath the branches of the eastern grove rustles the Iris in the rosy glow. Joy of heaven, and peace of the grove breathes the soul in the reddening glow.

Alas, time vanishes on dewy wing for me upon the lulling waves. Tomorrow time will vanish with shimmering wing again, as yesterday and today, until I upon loftier, more radiant wings myself vanish in the flux of time.