That I’m doomed to die I believed it never;
Always young and clad in my mantle wandered,
Dreaming eyes uplifted for ever fixed on
Solitude’s starlight.

When so sudden, there on my pathway rising,
Sorrow, O so painfully sweet, thou comest !
Then with deep delight to the dregs I drank thy
Merciless death cup.

And like Nessus burning alive and tortured,
Poisoned as was Hercules with his garment
This great fire that’s blazing in me I cannot
Quench with an ocean.

My own dream consuming me, sore lamenting,
On my pyre I die thus to ashes burning…
Can I from it living arise as bringht as
Phoenix the immortal ?

Troubling eyes, go out of my way for ever !
Back to me indifference dreary come now !
That I my in quietness die, O give me
Back my old selfhood !

Translated by Petre Grimm