In the sunshine

Richard Georg Strauss

Let me tarry here one more hour

in the sunshine,

sharing the pleasure and sadness of life with the flowers

in the sunshine!

Spring came and wrote on the rosepetals

a dreamy poem

about Paradise; I read the golden lines

in the sunshine.

Summer came to consume the earth

with divine fire,

and I saw the roses drooping their stems

in the sunshine.

Autumn came to call home life;

I saw it approach

and hurry away with roses in its hand

in the sunshine.

I greet you, shapes of life!

The ones I saw here

tarrying about me, hurry past

in the sunshine.

I greet you, travelers of life! -

those who wandered without me

and those who wandered with me for a little while

in the sunshine.

I look back and see the blooming valleys

undulating so lightly,

and the mountain that I once scaled with such difficulty, sheer

in the sunshine.

I go now; let the sweet weariness of life

rest now,

and let the pleasure and sadness of the earth heal now

in the sunshine.