TO THE DISTANT ONE ~ Goethe

And have I lost thee evermore,
Hast thou, oh, fair one, from me flown?
Still in mine ear sounds, as of yore,
Thine every word, thine every tone.

As when at morn the wanderer's eye
Attempts to pierce the air in vain,
When, hidden in the azure sky,
The lark high o'er him chants his strain:

So do I cast my troubled gaze
Through bush, through forest, o'er the lea;
Thou art invoked by all my lays;
Oh, come then, loved one, back to me!

by: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Storer Cobb's English translation of 'To the Distant One' was first published in Goethe: Poetical Works, vol. 1. Boston: Francis A Niccolls & Company, 1902.