Classic Poem

1.

O fly with me and be my wife,
And rest forever on my heart!
My heart will be thy Fatherland,
Thy father's house, where'er thou art.

O come! or I must perish here,
And thou be left alone, forlorn —
A stranger and an exile drear,
Within the house where thou wert born.

2.

(A genuine folk-song which Heine claims to have heard on the Rhine.)

There fell a frost one night of spring
Upon the little flowers blue;
They shrivelled and they faded.

There was a youth who loved a maid;
They fled in secret from the house,
Unknown to father, mother.

They wandered here, they wandered there,
But they had neither luck nor joy,
And so, uncherished, perished.

3.

Upon the grave a linden grows,
There sing the birds, the night wind blows;
And underneath, upon the grass,
The miller's lad sits with his lass.

The winds, they wail so soft and drear,
So sweet the birds, so sad to hear,
The lovers hush their talk and sigh:
They weep, themselves they know not why.