| |
| O FAR-OFF darling in the South, | |
| Where grapes are loading down the vine, | |
| And songs are in the throstle’s mouth, | |
| While love’s complaints are here in mine, | |
| Turn from the blue Tyrrhenian Sea! | 5 |
| Come back to me! Come back to me! | |
| |
| Here all the Northern skies are cold, | |
| And in their wintriness they say | |
| (With warnings by the winds foretold) | |
| That love may grow as cold as they! | 10 |
| How ill the omen seems to be! | |
| Come back to me! Come back to me! | |
| |
| Come back, and bring thy wandering heart— | |
| Ere yet it be too far estranged! | |
| Come back, and tell me that thou art | 15 |
| But little chilled, but little changed! | |
| O love, my love, I love but thee! | |
| Come back to me! Come back to me! | |
| |
| I long for thee from morn till night; | |
| I long for thee from night till morn: | 20 |
| But love is proud, and any slight | |
| Can sting it like a piercing thorn. | |
| My bleeding heart cries out to thee— | |
| Come back to me! Come back to me! | |
| |
| Come back, and pluck the nettle out; | 25 |
| Come kiss the wound, or love may die! | |
| How can my heart endure the doubt? | |
| Oh, judge its anguish by its cry! | |
| Its cry goes piercingly to thee— | |
| Come back to me! Come back to me! | 30 |
| |
| What is to thee the summer long? | |
| What is to thee the clustered vine? | |
| What is to thee the throstle’s song, | |
| Who sings of love, but not of mine? | |
| Oh, turn from the Tyrrhenian Sea! | 35 |
| Come back to me! Come back to me! | |
| |
