Longing and Absence

There is no pleasure to me without communication; there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind but I grieve that I have no one to tell it to.

Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the day-time, and falling into at night.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.

Stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum

A widow bird sat mourning for her love

Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit.

By the time you say you’re his,

Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

… La belle dame sans merci

And they are gone: aye, ages long ago

Woman much missed, how you call to me,

Meine Ruh’ ist hin,

If I should meet thee

When we two parted

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

Never the time and the place

Open my heart and you will see

Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,

Too late came I to love thee, O thou Beauty both so ancient and so fresh, yea too late came I to love thee. And behold, thou wert within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine.