With storm and night through a foreign land
I wander in solitude;
Yet I sing joyfully through mountains and valleys,
I know no harm shall come to me.

She [my beloved] is lovingly guarded by heaven,
Even if [heaven] is angry with me,
No pain shall come to me, no sorrow shall come to me,
For everything [that comes to me] would also come to her.

Beside the mighty ocean,
At midnight,
Where ranks of waves
Crash against the rocks,
I look out from the tower.
I call up a song
From my muscled breast
And hurl the sound
Into the wild tumult,
Into the night, the storm, the terror.

Break through, break through,
Oh, so joyfully,
My song, from out of the castle
Into the gale of the storm,
Proclaiming far into the night,
Where a ship pitches
Amidst the tides,
To where, churning against the reef
The course of the adventurer runs:
That here, above, a man keeps watch:

A powerful man,
Fresh and truly ready,
Where he can help
To allay the distress
With a call, with a lantern, with a hand.
The night is too black,
The place is too distant,
So, with power
He casts forth his voice
With reassurance across sea and land.

He who sways upon the waves,
In a leaking boat,
He who quivers in the woods,
As a robber draws near,
He will think: God will indeed help me.
When the wild ocean
Is already eddying downward,
When the bandit’s spear
Has pierced his hip,
He will think about the kingdom of heaven.