From Foreign Lands Poem by Peter Mamara

by M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

When all get cheerful, and when all here fool themselves,
When all have their joy and live cloudless days,
Only a soul cries: it hastens its desire
For its country's sweet plains and smiling fields.

And that heart that moans in pains
And that soul that sings while sleeps,
It is my sad heart that has no consolation.
It is my soul that burns with never ending ambition.

So much I seek my native valley,
Soaked in the crystal of its silvery creek.
I like to stop at the poetic labyrinth
In the shade of the forest
— Which I loved so much in the past.

I shall greet once more the valley's cottages
Sleeping with an air of peace.
Much natural pleasures, odd dreams, poetic whispers,
Gives me this calm: that used to breathe in me confidence.

I want to have a quiet, small house,
In my native valley undulated with flowers,
All the time to look at the mountain: how it raises
And gets its peak lost in the clouds.

I shall gaze at it, once more with delight
At the prosperous field that weaved my young days quite good,
The field that once heard my young and unclear speech
And saw the games of my youth, and my funny side.

The melodic whisper of the streamlet that sighs,
And the concert that the bird's choir sing
The song with a beat of the rusting of leaves,
Which triggered in me a gentle longing-sigh.

Yes! Yes! I would be happy if I could be there once more
— In my beloved neck of the woods, in my native home.
So, my dreams of youth, dreams of a banner,
With an ardent mind I can utter.

Even death, which scatters terror into the world
With icy shivers through people's throbbing veins,
If it may put me to sleep there, in that sweet stillness:
I would take towards the clouds in joyous dreams.

(1866, July 17/29)

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