Poems (Eminescu)/Where poplars solitary grow
WHERE POPLARS SOLITARY GROW…
Where poplars solitary grow
I passed so oft alone,
And all thy neighbours knew me well,
By thee I was not known.
Beneath thy shining window oft
Up looking did I stand,
A whole world round thee understood,
Thou didst not understand.
How often did I wait to hear
From thee a whispered word,
How happy should I then have been,
Had I thy voice but heard.
O but an hour of love with thee,
An hour to be thy friend,
To hear thy whisp’ring accents sweet,
And then this life to end.
If from thine eye serene had come
To me a ray of love,
Then for all future times would shine
A new star’s light above.
Thou wouldst have lived for ages long,
For ever in my rhyme,
And thou wouldst shine, with marble arms,
As beauty’s mould sublime.
And thou wouldst be for aye adored,
So beauteous, with no peer,
Like fairies from the times of yore,
That in our dreams appear.
I loved thee with a heathen’s eyes,
With painful passion hot,
That from my father’s fathers came
To be my earthly lot.
But seldom do I pass to-day,
Mine eyes no longer burn,
Nor do I care if sadly thou
For me thy head dost turn.
For in thy gesture, gait, to-day
Thou art like all, and I
Indifferently look at thee
With dead man’s sightless eye.
O if thy soul had then been filled
With sacred ecstasy,
Thou wouldst have lit on earth love’s lamp
To burn eternally.