The lake surrounds and cradles your silence,
Little garden which to me was vast
When I would play under your spreading chestnut.

In your old box hedges, skirting the gooseberry bushes,
I see all my childish pleasures dance.

The virgin vine and shoots of ivy
Have crowned your crumbling walls
In funerary wreaths, and your sparse lawns
No longer show the breath of the seasons' passing.

Weeds have colonised your walkways,
The sweet incense of floating rose blossom
No longer rises towards the venerable house.

That was then, or was it yesterday.
So many summers have fled, so many winters,
That I no longer count or know the days,
And the centennial tree still stretches her shadow
Over the deserted garden.











Translation / Traduction / Übersetzung / Traducción : Tom Everett