So wearily it disappeared into the night,
His pleading song, his bow-strokes,
And sighing I awakened.
How clear it made everything to me,
So soft and clear,
The dream -- and yet
It was solemn to the depths of sorrow.

The moon hung high; the snowy expanse
Lay pale and desolate about us,
Like my soul heavy with dread,
For beside me, so rigid and wild,
As rigid and cold as my suffering,
Called by me full of desire,
Death sat stiffly and waited.

Then it came wafting over as mildly as in the past,
So wearily and gently
From distant night,
So heavy with sorrow
The breath of a violin came,
Dimly the image of a friend came.

He who had woven himself about me like a ribbon
So that my youth did not fall apart,
And that my heart found that longing,
The great longing without an object:
There he stood now in the desolate land,
A pale and solemn shadow,
And neither looked up nor greeted me,
Only his musical sounds did he let drift
And weep through the cold meadow;
And only staring at me
From his brow,
As if it were an eye, hollow and pallid,
Was the dark mark of a deep wound.

And more drearily the dreary song poured forth,
And poured forth so fervidly and grew and swelled,
As hot and full
As life that glows for love,
As love that screams for life,
And for bliss not savoured,
Thus full of pain,
Thus raging poured forth
The streaming song and surged;
And quietly, quietly also bled and flowed
Into the desolate snow-field, red and wan,
The dark mark of the deep wound.

And ever more wearily floated the weary hand,
And before me stood
A pale day,
A distant, pale day of youth,
When stiffly in the sand
He himself lay, a mouldering ruin,
When his yearning forgot itself
In the excesses of its depression
And tired of its sadness,
And strode toward the goal;
And the weeping song screamed loudly and suddenly,
Like a scream of death, and surged forth,
And the lament of his strings cut,
And his brow bled
And joined in the weeping
Into the frozen misery of my soul,
As if I should hear a command,
As if I should rejoice that I suffer,
As if he wanted to feel what I suffered,
Feel with empathy all the guilt of my suffering
And all the warm benevolence of life --
And weeping, bleeding he turned away
Into the pale darkness and perished.

And with trembling I heard his song
Evading me and fleeing from me.  And as it
Became delicate and more delicate
The distant pleading of the long tones,
I felt the blowing of a cold wind
And laden with dread
I felt the air bestirring itself about me,
And trembling, I wanted now to see him,
To see him listening,
He, who sat waiting during my misery,
And I turned -- there lay bleakly
The pale field, and distantly and wanly
Death too vanished into the darkness.

The moon hung high; and gently and wearily
It vanished into the empty night,
The pleading song,
And vanished and departed,
The pleading song of my dead friend;
And with gratitude I awakened.