Where are the flowers, the beautiful flowers,
That haunted your homes and your hearts in the spring ?
Where is the sunshine of earlier hours ?
Where is the music the birds used to bring ?

The South-wind brings
Life, sunshine and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing? Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago? Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls have picked them every one. Oh, when will they ever learn?

But he who seeks the flowers of truth
Must quit the garden for the field

What is it the wind has lost that she keeps looking for under each leaf?

But he who seeks the flowers of truth,
Must quit the garden for the field.

Think not that I have come in quest of common flowers; but rather to bemoan the loss of one whose scent has vanished from the air.

Think not that I have come in quest of common flowers; but rather to bemoan the loss of one whose scent has vanished from the air.

Flowers fade and fly, and flying fill the sky;
Their bloom departs, their perfume gone, yet who stands pitying by? ...
Oh, let me sadly bury them beside these steps to-night! ...
Farewell, dear flowers, for ever now, thus buried as 'twas best,
I have not yet divined when I with you shall sink to rest.
I who can bury flowers like this a laughing-stock shall be;
I cannot say in days to come what hands shall bury me.
See how when spring begins to fail each opening floweret fades;
So too there is a time of age and death for beauteous maids;
And when the fleeting spring is gone, and days of beauty o'er,
Flowers fall, and lovely maidens die, and both are known no more.

Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the branches sang, Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

The flowers and my love
Passed away under the rain,
While I idly looked upon them
Where is my yester-love?

... ces bouquets de fleurs qui partent à la recherche d'un cœur et ne trouvent qu'un vase.

The shy little may-flower weaves her nest;
But the south wind blows o'er the fragrant loam,
And betrays the path to her woodland home.

O killing north wind, cease! Come, south wind, that awakenest love! Blow through my garden, And let its odours flow, And the Beloved shall feed among the flowers. ~ 17