# Mihai Eminescu's best-known lines

From "Once upon a time, as in the tales" in "The Evening Star" to "One Wish Alone Have I", "Evening on the Hill" and "Gloss": the lines by Mihai Eminescu every Romanian knows by heart, each with the poem's title and year.

- 41 votes · 16 items
- Apr 8, 2022 · Cristina Rusu
- https://even.best/en/l/5182/mihai-eminescu-s-best-known-lines

## Top 16

1. **Living in your narrow circle, / fortune keeps you company, / but in my own world I feel / immortal and cold.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Poem "The Evening Star" (1883).
2. **Time goes by and time comes on, / all is old and all is new.** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Poem "Gloss" (1883).
3. **Everything in the world has passed away; only evil has remained.** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Poem "Memento mori" (posthumous).
4. **Once upon a time, as in the tales, / as there never was, / of great imperial kin, / there was a most beautiful maiden.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Poem "The Evening Star" (1883).
5. **One wish alone have I: / in the calm of evening / let me die / at the edge of the sea.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Poem "One Wish Alone Have I" (1883).
6. **The blue lake of the forests / is laden with yellow water lilies.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Poem "The Lake" (1876).
7. **And if branches tap at the window / and the poplars tremble, / it is to keep you in my mind / and let you slowly come near.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Poem "And If…" (1883).
8. **Forest, little forest, / how are you, my dear?** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Poem "Seeing Again" (1879).
9. **Come into the forest, to the spring / that trembles on the pebbles.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Poem "Desire" (1876).
10. **By the odd-numbered poplars / I often passed.** (0 · ▲2 ▼2) — Poem "By the Poplars Without Pair…" (1883).
11. **And yet the world is sad!** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Poem "Blue Flower" (1873).
12. **Perhaps it went out long ago / in the blue distances, / and only now its ray / shines into our sight.** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Poem "To the Star" (1886).
13. **From the Dniester to the Tisza / every Romanian has complained to me.** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Poem "Doina" (1883).
14. **What do I wish you, sweet Romania, / my land of glories, my land of longing?** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Poem "What Do I Wish You, Sweet Romania" (1867).
15. **Come down, gentle evening star, / gliding on a ray.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "The Evening Star" (1883).
16. **At evening on the hill the alphorn sounds mournfully, / the flocks climb up, stars sparkle on their way.** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — Poem "Evening on the Hill" (1885).

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.