Here is the promised English version of the Heine poem (set to music by Schumann) which I posted at the weekend. I don't know who wrote this, but it comes from John Julius Norwich's first 'Christmas Crackers' literary commonplace collection (a favourite book which I salvaged from storage on my last trip back to the UK), so it might well be by JJN himself.
A young man loves a maiden,
Who turns from him aside
To one who loves another yet
And takes her for his bride.
The girl, in sore resentment
At fortune so ill-starred,
Marries the next that comes along;
The first lad takes it hard.
It's all an old, old story,
And yet it's always new:
And whosoever suffers it,
It breaks his heart in two.
And here's what you get it you run the Google translation tool on the original German:
A young man loves a girl,
Those chose another;
The andre loves a andre,
And with this vermählt itself
The girl marries from annoyance
The first best man,
The it in the way run;
The young man is bad to.
It is an old history
But it remains always new;
And whom it just pass,
To that breaks the heart divide.
The human translator is far from being obsolete as yet!
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