Evening song

My eyes, my dear little windows,

for a long time now you have given me lovely light,

kindly allowing in one image after another:

yet one day you will grow dark!

When someday your weary lids fall closed,

you will be extinguished and my soul will have its rest;

tentatively, it will strip off its wanderer's shoes,

and lay itself also in its dark coffin.

But it will still see two small sparks gleaming there

like two little stars, seen only inwardly,

until they weaken and then also die out

as if blown by the wings of a butterfly.

But I still wander in the evening fields,

accompanied only by fading stars:

drink, o eyes, as much as your lashes can hold,

of the golden opulence of the world!