Full Lyrics
O that god would change me to a seabird,
soaring in the sunset,
joyously and free,
leaving all my sorrow
for my own tomorrow,
far beyond this lying world’s illusion.
I would fly away to that bright garden
past the ocean’s ending,
where eternity
nourishes the flowers
through their perfect hours
never touched by human life’s confusion.
To fly away, away, away, away, away on wings of wishing,
where the golden apples swell in ripeness,
and the fertile meadows
bloom abundantly,
bringing forth earth’s treasures
for the deathless pleasures
granted to the gods in calm profusion.
Whitewinged Cretan ship that brought my princess
from her happy childhood
to a queen’s despair,
fatal was your leaving
Crete for a deceiving
weddingsong that was a dirge of sadness.
Dark and evil was her hour of sailing,
luckless was her landfall,
doomed to pain and care,
crushed beneath the mighty
storm of Aphrodite,
wrecked by her unholy passion’s madness.
And now to die, to die, to die, to die, to die is all her longing.
I see my queen retired within her chamber,
weeping under fortune
worse than she can bear,
fastening from its ceiling
her last means of healing
ills that stain her life and end all gladness.
