A proper spirit
Leaps with the nightingales
Upon many a blossom,
And rejoices in every one of them!
From this branch
That other spirit wishes to resound alone,
Not surge and bend together
With the whole mass of mankind.
 
Yet what is able to
Disturb its surging heart?
Not drumbeats!
It beats defiantly in a chorus.
Not the cry of a cuckoo,
Often interpreted superstitiously by children,
No sound of hoof-beats
Racing over the meadows.
 
Nothing perturbs it,
It is only impelled to sing more brightly,
Then it hears
The echo sounding;
When the heart is full
The mouth speaks in abundance,
And joy and pain
Becomes all the dearer.
 
And only too soon
It forgets itself in throbbing,
Itself and the woods,
A falcon can carry it off;
But look at the falcon,
It listens in consternation,
The silly rogue,
And holds its beak open!