Bearers' Songs

I

All that live must die:

This early end is not fate's malice.

Last night a man like any other,

Today inscribed among the ghosts.

Where goes the soul's dispersed vapor

When dry bones fill the cofin's hollow?

My son weeping seeks his fathcr,

Good friends shed tears and stroke my body.

No more do gain and loss affect me,

What have I to do with right and wrong?

After a thousand years or ten thousand

Who will know my fame or failure?

Of life I have but one regret

I never had enough to drink.

II

Then I had no wine to drink,

Today in vain the cup stands full.

The spring wine brews foating bubbles

When will I ever have another taste?

The table is loaded with food before me

Friends and family weep at my side.

Should I wish to speak, my mouth is dumb

Should I wish to look, my eyes lack sight.

I used to sleep in a high hall

Now I rest in the village of weeds.

We go out the gate one morning

The day ofreturn will never come.

III

How desolate the moorland lies,

The white poplars sough in the wind.

There is sharp frost in the ninth month

When they escort me to the far suburbs.

There where no one dwells at all

The high grave mounds rear their heads.

The horses whinny to the sky,

The wind emits a mournful sound.

Once the dark house is closed

In a thousand years there will be no new dawn.

There will be no new dawn

And all man's wisdom helps not at all.

The people who have brought me here

Will now go back, each to his home.

My own family may still feel grief

The others will be already singing.

What shall we say, we who are dead?

Your bodies too will lodge on the hill.