Forgive me! We shall not meet again
We shall not shake hands again;
Forgive me! Your heart is free
But it will not find happiness in another.
I know that with sudden suffering
It will tremble again
When you hear the name
Of him who died so long ago!

There are sounds that mean nothing
Sounds despised by the crowd;
But they are impossible to forget
For as in life they are entwined with the soul.
As in a coffin the past is buried
In the depth of those holy sounds;
Only two in the whole world will understand them
And only two will shudder at them!

We were together but a moment
But eternity is nothing before it;
We exhausted all our feelings all at once
We burned them with a single kiss;
Forgive me! Dont feel reckless regret
Dont regret our short-lived love
It seemed difficult to say farewell
But twould be far more difficult to meet again!

translation by Igor Prokhorov