Poor comfort
Ernst Pepping
Every midnight I weep and sob
because I miss you.
One night nocturnal ghosts came
and I was ashamed.
"Nocturnal ghosts," I said,
"Sobbing and weeping
you find me, whom
sleeping, you once passed by.
Great goodness I miss.
Think not the worse of me,
this man whom once you called wise,
for a great evil has befallen him!"
And the nocturnal ghosts,
with long faces,
passed by:
whether I was wise or foolish
did not trouble them at all.