On the wide heath undulates
The cloud back and forth,
It wanders without stopping,
It wanders back and forth,
Oh, if it only came to the cliff's edge,
Which plummets down to the valley!
It would want to descend with a rapid sweep, --
It dreams of it a thousand times.

  It is for naught that it peers about,
Everything runs in the same pattern,
The pathway loses itself in its descent
And creeps back up again.
Is there no bird around here
Who could show me the way?
On the barren heath, everything is mute,
No one sets foot upon the path.

   And finally the cloud comes
To the mountain lake, black and deep.
In the reeds there moves a weary breath.
Oh, how fortunate is he who sleeps down there.
And quietly, quietly the gentle greyness 
Of the cloud stretches itself over the lake,
And melts and sinks and dissolves therein, --
The lake then smiles in blueness.