To the March of Brandenburg

Frost-covered pines, breathless lakes:

they dream like dark eyes

in eternal longing for spring's kingdom;

and up above, a dark procession of crows.

Many young lives does the sun see.

Melancholy sits already at the edge of the forest

and writes mysterious signs in the sand;

no spring storm will erase its work.

And one day comes the youthful May;

and yet - even during the joyous abandon of kisses,

there lives the awareness that we must die -

that all is but a dream, full of pain.

This land, where desire and hope are blessed,

and yet, in their riddle-like way,

are not to be rescued entirely from quiet sorrow -

this land is my home and I am its child.