Wherefore my sorrow?

 

My lips they asked my eyes today

“Say, eyes, wherefore your tears?”

They did not know, they could not say

So then I asked my ears.

 

My ears told me they missed a voice

I’d lately left behind,

That always caused them to rejoice

“What voice?” I asked my mind.

 

My mind in melancholy, caught

Stirred weakly to take part

And offered up one fearful thought

“I cannot find my heart.”

 

“And when I see her once again?”

My soul, with gentle hope

My eyes replied “It will be then

That our weeping may stop.”

 

My ears replied “Once we have heard,

Her voice -- that lovely sound --,

My mind will be again alert

When I my heart have found.”

 

Tis thus I come to you, my love,

To ask you: “Be my bride?”

For nothing on this Earth can move

My heart from by your side.