Sweet evenings come and go, love
George Eliot’s poem “Sweet Evenings Come and Go, Love” was published in her 1878 collection, “The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems, Old and New”. The “villancico” in the epigraph is a Spanish folk song. Eliot translates the epigraph in her first stanza.
Known by her pen name George Eliot, Mary Ann Evans was born on 22 November 1819 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, and she died on 22 December 1880 in Chelsea, London, England, at the age of 61.Eliot was a novelist, poet, journalist, and translator. She wrote seven novels. Like Dickens and Hardy, she emerged from provincial England, and her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside.
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“La noche buena se viene, La noche buena se va, Y nosotros nos iremos Y no volveremos mas.” – Old Villancico.
Sweet evenings come and go, love, They came and went of yore: This evening of our life, love, Shall go and come no more.
When we have passed away, love, All things will keep their name; But yet no life on earth, love, With ours will be the same.
The daisies will be there, love, The stars in heaven will shine: I shall not feel thy wish, love, Nor thou my hand in thine.
A better time will come, love, And better souls be born: I would not be the best, love, To leave thee now forlorn.