The Last Meeting

When we met after years of parting,
we walked together in the garden, like two lovers.

And it happened that I gave her a rose,
which after a while dropped from her hand;

she picked it up from the face of the earth,
and behold... it was white as jasmine!

No falling snow had whitened the rose —
my fair one, do not look to the sky
and accuse the summer of a shameful betrayal!

From the air of our own hearts the frost rose up,
snow upon the rose and upon its gatherers,

and love is more wretched still — so turn back before
the company betrays us to the onlookers!..