With the many others, great and small,
   I lament your death grievously;
Shall weep copious tears by your coffin
   Until my eyes are red from weeping.

It isn't that you are not contentedly
   Snuggling up to your sweet mother,
And that you lie, not in the cosy cradle
   But dead in the coffin.

This world is but a vestibule, sooner or later
   We all pass on,
And it is truly not worth the trouble
   To be here for long;

Think not that you never saw your father's splendor
   And his kingdom here on earth,
And that you haven't worn the crown
   That was ordained for you; --

Alas, such crowns are not without heaviness,
   Are fraught with dangers, my child!
And there are honors awaiting the children of men
   Which are even greater;

Instead, reflect that we inhabit a country
   Where rust eats into the iron,
Where constantly, with shacks as with thrones,
   Everything perishes;

Where we wander haphazardly,
   And go about in the dark of night,
Acting only from folly and show and delusion,
   And can't see the light;

Where we exult and weep in the dark
   And all about us, all around,
Everything, everything, no matter what it seems,
   Is vain and empty.

O you land of essence and of truth,
   Imperishable for ever and ever!
I long for you and your clarity;
   I long for you.