a paraphrase of a translation of the text of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde
A golden cup compels hypnotic wine;
But then, as though you need to hear me sing
A song to make you sad, and then to bring
You to laughter; then for drink you'll pine.
As helpless laughter you should hear this song,
Setting laments for vanished rustic health;
Mourning decay, the darkening of wealth.
And now for silent drunkenness you'll long.
And all this wine, this land, it's all your own.
You would not thank me if I took your money
And with it showed you vanity, it's funny
How the world is not enough to own.
So darkness falls on life and songs and breath;
So darkness falls on drinking and on death.
You can admire the blue eternal sky
And may indulge the sentiment of spring.
But these are rotten handholds where you cling
For maybe seven decades, then you die.
Better a fantasy, a moonlit grave,
Indulge it, see a foggy, ghastly shape
And see it, still unclearly, as an ape.
Then you, and not the ape, will howl and rave.
Well, since it's now quite fitting, start to drink
Fully and friendly; fill the passing time.
Or, with equal friendliness, attempt to climb.
Or neither. Look and listen, talk and think.
And darkness falls on songs and life and breath;
And darkness falls on drinking and on death.
A lake is hidden, changed by the blue shade
Of frost in autumn, in the early hours,
Caking unnaturally the fragile flowers
As if a painter worked with powdered jade.
So now the pleasant flowers have lost their scent;
The strengthened gales hurl stiffening cold;
The petals now are grey that once were gold.
And all the summer growth is drowned or bent.
My spirit too is dampened and unfired,
And all my memories of what was best
Come to a final need for peace and rest.
To soothe me as my soul is now retired.
Alone in a long autumn still I cry.
Will it be autumn, or winter, till I die.
Like a willow pattern etched on white
On porcelain, a house and lake in green
An arch and friends in a small scene
Friends in a summer house of small delight
Talking, and writing, smooth in silken dress
Drinking and happy in their isle and lake
Green in that perfection that they take
Where in that island home there is no stress
And still the pool is green and still as glass
And in the pool the house and arch appear
And all those friends are still reflected near
To themselves, so that - reversed - they pass
To the inverted liquid house of friends
Into the scene which mirrored moonlight bends.
Arcadian maidens picking lotus flowers
In pastoral ecstasy; beside the river
In summer sunshine where they cannot shiver,
In magic idleness they spend their hours.
When, with the wind, on rapid horses,
Their complements, their perfect toys
Come with the insolence of careless boys,
Wild with the metaphors of youthful forces.
One horse more energetic than the rest
Disturbs the flowers in swift derangement;
Preempts the aim of mindful rearrangment,
And represents its wildness as the best.
Then she whose beauty gives most cause for pride.
Her heart is taken by the rampant ride.
"And when my life is little more than seeming
Why should I even try to think?
Why not enjoy a deep unending drink
Until my drunkenness is endless dreaming?
"What could I hear if I were woken?
A song bird laughing at the rising spring?
And spring, with laughter, is the only thing,
The only word the flying bird has spoken.
"Uneasy, and unsteadily, I wait
For moonlight, and I start to chant;
Mourning and draining all the things I can't
Endure - and that is other than my fate.
"What do I truly need? I cannot weep;
I give the spring indifference - and sleep."
And after sunset all the valleys freeze;
Then the cold moon seems to sail and float
Up the dark sky, like a shining boat,
Above the darker fir trees on the breeze.
In that paleness flowers by the stream
Remind a tired world of distant joys,
With birds unsinging, flightless wooden toys;
Prosaic people only wish to dream.
And cold and dark beneath the trees I wait
To say goodbye forever to my friend.
If he was here this evening beauty's end
Might be endured, might be another fate.
And so I walk with music from the day
On grassy paths which soft and endless stray.
The horseman came at last to drink and speak
And asked him questions there on "where" and "why".
His voice was almost hidden as a sigh
He spoke, but what he spoke was bleak:
"My life was not a kind one, and I go
Beyond this place, to walk in higher places;
To rest from longing and from faces,
To rest from everything I do not know,
"To somewhere else where I can cease to roam,
To where I need not try to find
A distance from the searching of my mind,
To find a time which calls itself my home."
The earth renewed in growth and light will stay
And be forever in music from the day.