Let revelry cease and charming people pause their charming,
let flights of angels sing him to his rest –
my girl’s sparrow is dead,
the sparrow she loved so much,
the sparrow she cared about more than she cared for her own eyes.
Oh, he was sweet as honey, this little bird,
and was as familiar with her as a little girl with her own mother,
not wanting to fly away,
but hopping about her body, and chirping to her
confidentially.
Now, he has embarked on that dark journey
from which no one ever can return,
while I stand here on this fragile shore howling curses
into the underworld, where death takes everything that was beautiful,
bearing even this beautiful sparrow away from me –
this miserable sparrow, who has caused the eyes of my girl
to be so red and swollen with weeping.
let flights of angels sing him to his rest –
my girl’s sparrow is dead,
the sparrow she loved so much,
the sparrow she cared about more than she cared for her own eyes.
Oh, he was sweet as honey, this little bird,
and was as familiar with her as a little girl with her own mother,
not wanting to fly away,
but hopping about her body, and chirping to her
confidentially.
Now, he has embarked on that dark journey
from which no one ever can return,
while I stand here on this fragile shore howling curses
into the underworld, where death takes everything that was beautiful,
bearing even this beautiful sparrow away from me –
this miserable sparrow, who has caused the eyes of my girl
to be so red and swollen with weeping.