One Fine Day

(Un Bel Di Vendremo)
Translated from Giacomo Puccini’s Opera Madama Butterfly

One fine day we'll notice
A thread of smoke arising on the sea

In the far horizon,
And then the ship appearing;
Then the trim white vessel
Glides into the harbor, thunders forth her cannon.
See you? Now he is coming!
I do not go to meet him. Not I! I stay upon
the brow of the hillock, And wait there... and wait for
a long time, But never weary
of the long waiting.
From out the crowded city There is coming
a man, a little speck in
the distance, climbing the hillock.
Can you guess who it is?
And when he's reached the summit,
Can you guess what he'll say?
He will call: “Butterfly” from the distance.
I, without answering, Hold myself
quietly concealed,
A bit to tease him and a bit so as not to die
At our first meeting; and then, a little troubled
He will call, he will call:
“Dear baby wife of mine,
Dear little orange blossom!”
The names he used to call me when he came here.
This will all come to pass as I tell you.
Banish your idle fears, For he will return
I know it.