In a cool valley

In a cool valley

there turns a mill-wheel;

Gone is my darling

who had lived there.

She promised to be constant

and gave me a ring to prove it;

she has broken her faith

and my ring cracked in two.

I would like to journey as a minstrel

into the wide world out there,

and sing my melodies

going house to house.

I would like to dash as a horseman

into bloody battle,

to lie around a quiet fire

in the field at darkest night.

When I hear the mill-wheel turning,

I do not know what I want -

I want most of all to die,

for then the wheel would at a single blow be silent.