Volver [English translation]

I can almost see the flicker

Of the lights that in the distance

Mark the way of my returning…

They’re the very ones that lit up,

Their reflections pale and misted,

Many hours of deep pain.

Though it was not what I wanted,

First love makes one always come back again.

The quiet [age-old] street where once the echo told me:

Her life is yours, her love is yours to earn,

Under the stars that mockingly look on me,

And now in their indifference see me return.

Return… with my forehead all wrinkled,

My temples turned silver by time’s falling snow…

To feel… that one’s life is a twinkle,

Twenty years hardly reckon,

And two fevered eyes beckon,

In shadows forestall you

And seek you and call you.

To live… with the soul firmly clinging

To one sweet remembrance

That makes me weep so.

I am frightened of the meeting

With the past that is returning

To confront my life all over.

I am frightened of the nighttimes

When my dreams are linked and fleeting

And old mem’ries come to stay.

And yet the trav’ler who’s fleeing

Sooner or later must stop on the way…

And though oblivion, which destroys all being,

Has killed my old hopes, ripping them apart,

Yet I keep hidden a humble hopeful glimmer

That is the only fortune there is in my heart.