Humid air, do you not wish to dissipate,
[And] you sensuous murmuring in the rocky fissure?
How deeply I am benumbed by the wafting of the flowers,
By the jugging of the nightingale in the wood!

  The ocean is spraying upon the promontory,
The mermaids entice my intoxicated senses.
And in colourful passage, cities, gardens 
Are carried off by the clouds.

  Oh sweet ringing!  oh glorious pageant
Of boundless abundance -- whither? whence?
A sleep-inducing dew presses blessedly upon my eyes.
What more [could]1 I hope for, what more wish for?

  What spring proffers, what summer creates,
What the soul desires, it is at hand.
A foreign race, full of delight and power,
There it moves without garments.

  How the song of a storm quickens my blood!
Come, show yourself ungarbed, fair pleasure!
Oh, melting fervour, do not dissolve me into dew
Before I have pressed life to my bosom!

  Beauty, ask not after law, after modesty;
Surrender yourself suddenly, surrender yourself utterly!
You do not belong to permanence, do not belong to faithfulness, --
Death is your sweetest radiance.

  May the tear burst forth smilingly,
And may life be consumed in flames by life,
[United then, the spirits rise rejoicingly]2,
A sun-intoxicated well-spring.

  Oh numbing power of blessed figures.
Fervently, I stretch my arms out.
Oh, check the confused splendour of your flight!
Rest upon my bosom! --

  They disappear, a radiant foam.
My soul languishes, my senses are scattered.
And it grows quiet in the infinite expanse.
Woe unto me! Whither shall I go to save myself?

  The Lord looks at me with the eye of night.
He calls. I cannot answer Him.
Oh hell, where is your magical power?
My heart breaks in the depths.

  Then a blessed song wafts through the aether,
As if from pure crystal, from a virginal breast.
Saved, I gaze upward, and before me passes
Mary, the joy of Heaven.