And we, who think always of a happiness Ascending, Would be by our emotion quite undone, If one should fall.

Not because happiness exists --- that hasty Profit which betokens a near loss.

We set in order, and it perishes. Order again, and we ourselves do perish.

Do not think that fate means more than the thick wilderness of childhood.

To us. We do not know the shape of feeling, Only what outwardly determines it. Who has not sat in fear before the curtain Of his own heart?

O trees of life, when do you turn to winter? We are not in agreement. We are not Initiated, as migrating birds; But, overtaken, and belated, throng Precipitately on the winds, and fall Into a lake that’s callous to our fate. We are acquainted both with blossoming And with decay; see both in the same hour; And somewhere still the lions go to and fro, Knowing no weakness while their splendour lasts.

Who can hold Those who are beautiful? Incessantly Some cheating semblance of reality Crosses their faces, and again departs.

The beating of our own heart would destroy us.

Lovers most marvellously could descant Thereon, by night, if they could understand it. For it would seem, that all things wrap themselves In secrecy against us. See: the trees Exist; the houses stand, that shelter us. We only, with a light exchange of greeting, pass all things by, and everything conspires Against us, to keep silence; half in shame, Perhaps, and half in hope unspeakable.

Shall not these oldest of all griefs at last bear fruit for us?