I.
Have you ever found yourself all alone,
Loveless and without God on a moor,
The wounds of base misfortune bandaged
With silent pride, numb or angry suffering?

Had all cheerful hopes disappeared from your view,
Like a huntsman on a mountain precipice?
Is the barking of the lost hounds dying away,
As a little bird flies off to escape the winter?

If you were ever so alone on a moor,
Then you will know how one is forced
To rush at a boulder, to embrace it;

And how, being frightened by the loneliness,
One leaps up in horror from the impassive rock
And fearfully stretches one's arms to the wind.

II.
The wind is a stranger, and you cannot embrace it;
The boulder is dead, you will seek in vain
A comforting word from this cold, rough object;
You will even feel abandoned by roses.

Soon you see them, unaware of you, turned pallid,
Occupied solely with their own dying.
Go further forward: decay greets you everywhere
In the long dark avenues of living creatures!

Here and there you see them peering out of their huts,
Then they slam their windows in your face,
The huts go tumbling, and you feel a shudder.

Loveless and without God! the path is awful,
The wind blows cold in the alleys; and as for you? -
The entire world is desperately sad.