Good luck, thus is the greeting of the miner,
It rings out at all times;
He says it when to the deep shaft
He travels down in his black garb,
And when he climbs back up toward daylight
He calls out the word: Good luck!
 
Good luck -- that was the first sound
When I first saw the light of this world,
The sound with which my mother’s lips
Greeted me upon this earth.
And whoever else may have spoken it thereafter:
[My mother’s] was the most heartfelt “Good luck”!
 
Good luck, thus I too once called out
In the bright beaming of a Sunday morning,
When she followed me to the altar,
A wreath of myrtle in her brown hair.
I still think of it after the passing of many years,
It was my most blissful “Good luck”!
 
Good luck, thus they shall still call,
After the old, true custom of miners,
When they lower me into my grave
Quietly down to my loved ones.
But one must rest so sweetly upon it
When into the grave sounds such a “Good luck”!
 
Therefore “Good luck” at all times
In sorrow and in joy,
In the bright splendour of God’s sun,
In the raven-black rocky shaft.
Whether one goes downward, whether one goes upward,
The miner’s word, it is: Good luck!