C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Song of Lament
By Sándor Petőfi (1823–1849)
Translation of Sir John Bowring
O
Breaks out the music of the village bells,
Upon the ear of the roused peasant falling,
And to the church devotions gently calling!
What sweet remembrances that music brings
Of early thoughts and half-forgotten things:
Things half forgotten, yet on these past dreams
Distinct, as living life, one figure beams
In brightness and in youthful beauty—she
Sleeps her long sleep beneath the willow-tree;
There I my never-wearied vigils keep,
And there I weep, and cannot cease to weep.