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strange, there needs nothing but a ballad romance, The far-off remembrance of an air, brought by chance, To give back to our heart its purity entire, Our earliest bashfulness, and our candour and fire.

O refrain half-forgotten, from some delicate hand! Fragment of a sonata, old, simple and grand! O dream of Mozart that he had never written out, That I hum in my sleep, and that floats all about! Thou awaken'st one by one the blest days of my prime, Framed like a picture in a landscape sublime; Thou restorest me Hours that pass smiling again, Hand linked in hand as of fair wood-nymphs a train, Treading down the high grass that green borders the road Which leads to our village, to my childhood's abode.

From the plane-tree high lifted the twilight falls down; O Night, Cleopatra with the bright starry crown! Stop, stop a moment thy car, and quench not the sun, Leave, leave us alone until our pastimes be done! We are gathered together by Friendship divine. How pleasant to run under the boughs that entwine! The sward is so verdant and so lovely the hour! To-morrow to meet thus, shall fate grant us the power?