Paradise must be more beautiful
    Than any place on earth;
    Therefore my heart wishes to be quickly,
    Very quickly, granted a place there.
 
In paradise there must flow
    A river of eternal love!
    And every tear of longing
    Must be a pearl within it.
 
In paradise there must waft
    A zephyr that stills pain!
    [Such that every pain, and mine]1 as well,
    Must dissolve and disappear in it!
 
There stands the cool tree of peace
    Planted in green spaces,
    And under [that tree] it must be possible to dream
    A quiet dream of rest and happiness.
 
A Cherubim stands at the gate
    To frighten away the world,
    So that to me as well no breath from the world comes
    To waken me from that dream.
 
There shall the decaying ship, my heart,
    Rest, anchored, in the harbour,
    Pain, the ever-active infant in my breast,
    Shall finally sleep.
 
For every thorn that wounded me here,
    I shall find the matching rose,
    And joy, which never picked any roses for me [here on earth],
    Shall twine them about my brow.
 
There all joys shall blossom
    That died in the bud here,
    And all the sheaves of death
    Shall become a single spring-green sprig.
 
There everything that my heart ever searched for
    Shall quietly come to meet me,
    As a golden fruit from the green branch,
    As a bright flower from the flowerbeds.
 
The wishes and hopes of my breast
    Like flowers from every corner of the globe,
    Shall in quiet rapture there
    All live about me together.
 
Youth, which with rapid wingbeats
    Rushed past me,
    Love, which on a single day
    Enchanted me with nectar,
 
They shall, without flight or wings,
    Eternally surround me in merry jesting,
    Shall hold me like a child upon a lap,
    And shall press their darling to their hearts.
 
And that divinity, whose light
    Bedewed me from afar,
    And whose clear visage
    I saw only in dreams,
 
Poetry, as spirit of the world,
    Shall unveil itself to me radiantly,
    When Freimund’s song unites itself brightly
    With the choir of the stars' lyres.