Little deer promenaded in the forest,
  There he played his agreeable games,
So that the other animals always
  Liked him as a merry companion.
 
He could run, he could leap
  Over hedge, ditch and brook;
With the singing of the earliest birds
  He, too, awakened to play.
 
But behind the hazelnut scions
  A hunter concealed himself with his dog;
The hunter shot only too well,
  Wounded the poor little deer.
 
When the deer quickly gathered himself,
  Ran anxiously through valley and grove,
The hunter called loudly, and [the dog]
  Phylax yelped mockingly after him.
 
The little deer wanted to tell his friends of his woe,
  But all of them ran away,
They left the wounded little deer to his distress,
  Each of them sought a safe place.

The little deer can no longer leap now,
  His wound is all too painful,
When the birds sing again,
  It lies down in the clover and weeps.