* * *

Sing, lovely one, I beg, no more
The songs of Georgia in my presence,
For of a distant life and shore
Their mournful sound calls up remembrance;

For of a moonlit steppe, and night
They cruelly, vengefully remind me,
And of a face long lost to sight,
Well loved, but left, alas, behind me.

When you are nigh, I gaze at you,
And lo! No fatal shadow haunts me:
But at your song's first note, anew
It reappears, and plagues and taunts me.

Sing, lovely one, I beg, no more
The songs of Georgia in my presence,
For of a distant life and shore
Their mournful sound calls up remembrance.