Many a time I saw the leaves
  Grow colourful after a short springtime,
I saw in early death agony
  Many a valued life die.
The blissful time of love is over,
  Song and jest have faded away,
And wishes and hopes grow mute,
  And it becomes desolate in my heart.

When after a merry night of carousing
  The last of the revellers
Awakes in the grey twilight of the room,
  Surrounded by overturned tankards, --
Thus the world baldly shows me 
  The drab features of an old man,
And, filled with shame, I become aware of
  The great lie of life.

But angrily I oppose my pain
  And say to my heart:
Yes, be ashamed, you foolish heart,
  But be ashamed of your pain!
You well knew that springtime and joy
  Would end in woe for you;
Why are you now timid, now that you have realized
  That this, too, shall pass away.

Oh wondrous river, ephemerality,
  As salutary as it is deleterious!
My happiness is dead, now my sorrow lives,
  But my sorrow, too, is mortal.
The world, my heart, is mist and foam,
  An image of errant ponderings,
And like an anxious dream it shall
  Dissolve for you into quiet night.