English translations of Zwei Gesänge für vierstimmigen Frauenchor mit Pianoforte, opus 18

Endure, arm yourself well with patience!
In a mere hour
Your chamber shall be full of sunshine.
 
Above the roof-ridge, where the bells hang,
The radiance has long departed,
It went into the window of the tower watchman.
He who lives closest to the storm of the bells,
He lives in solitude, is often startled,
But he is the first to be comforted by sunshine.
 
He who builds [his house] in deep alleys,
Where hut leans cosily against hut,
Bells have never unsettled him,
[Lightning has never quivered about him]1,
But his morning dawns late.
 
Height and lowness have joy and sorrow.
Reject foolish jealousy:
A different affliction conceals within it a different joy.
 
Endure, arm yourself well with patience!
In a mere hour
Your chamber shall be full of sunshine.

I if could grow wings,
Up, over the hills
Toward the heavens I would wheel,
Free like a bird, surmount the treetops
And, from the green boughs of twilight
Squawk in a chorus of joyful song.

Soaring in a broad arc
Would I come,
Proud like a falcon in the sunny blue,
Agile as the swallow I would sail,
Grazing over the nodding grasses,
Sprinkling my breast with the sparkling dew.

Early in the morning
Hidden within the forest,
I would, like the thrush, wake the reluctant day,
Gull, I would fly along the shoreline with you,
And rock myself on the foamy waves,
Listening to the thunderous pounding of the sea.

But, O nightingale,
If I could everywhere
Glide from branch to branch like you do,
I know a bush in front of some lonely huts,
Where I would pour forth my melodies
With greetings of love, and there take my rest.