Page:Creole Sketches.djvu/146

116 Here is a free translation:

I do not know what it is which torments me thus. I cannot tell what it is that makes my heart beat so. O God! what torture! what pains I have suffered so long! It is worse than the pain of fetters; I had rather die at once. Do you remember the pretty little brook that ran through the banana-trees— Where you used to have such fun, when you used to bathe? That water has ceased to run;— Since the time it stopped all at once— It seems to me it died of regret That its wavelets could not embrace you forever.

This translation, as we have already observed, is very free, but contains the spirit of the little song. We shall be very grateful to any of our readers who will bring us some more of these curiosities.