(FROM THE GERMAN OF WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE)
Woe to thee, Year, and hast thou
so silent got thee forth?
Hath Life a blood securely,
or dreamed I at the hearth?
Is what I took for true,
Truth Incontaminate?
For truly I have slumbered,
who can well say, how late.
And now I am full wakened,
nor cannot understand
What once I wist as dearly
as even this my hand.
Those divers grounds anointed,
where jumped and fed my heart,
Loom as a ghost unclearly,
all alien and apart.
Who danced with me in childhood,
go agued in the town;
Sweet-broom comes nothing near me,
the laurels are cut down,
For that the stream runs toneless
I fear strange influence,
Hiding that lilt of spilling,
doth baffle my poor sense.
They pass unkindly by me
that once sought for my side:
The World is riven wholly
with wantonness and pride.
Sadly must I remember
a lovelier day I wist
That left no other traces
than blows struck at a mist.
Sorrow is mine, and woe.
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