How can I endure the joy

How can I endure the joy,

How can I then endure the bliss -

That under all the throbbing

Of my heart, my soul will not part from me?

And if now the hours

Of love have vanished,

Why the urge

In dreary desolation,

To drag further a joyless life

When by the shore the flowers will not bloom?

With what leaden feet does Time pass,

Step by deliberate step!

And if I must part,

How feather-light does its step then fly!

Throb, o yearning power,

In my deep, true breast!

Like echoes of a lute, fading away,

Do the finest joys of life flee.

Ah, how soon

Till I am hardly aware of bliss.

Rush, rush ever forth,

Deep stream of time,

Soon you will wander off, today or tomorrow,

And go from place to place;

Since you have taken me this far,

Now merrilly, now quietly;

I will now venture further,

However it may turn out.

I must not think myself wretched,

Since my Darling beckons;

Love will not let me languish

Until this life has sunk!

No, the stream will ever broaden,

Heaven will remain ever clear,

Joyously I row farther;

I'll bring love and life together to the grave.