Or is this game truly truly over?
Where are winters, when I fell asleep
In the morning in the sixth hour?

In a new way, severely and calmly,
I now live on the wild shore.
I can no longer pronounce
The tender or idle word.

I can't believe that Christmas-tide is coming.
Touchingly green is this the steppe before
The beaming sun. Like a warm
Wave, licks the tender shore.

When from happiness languid and tired
I was, then of such quiet
With trembling inexpressible I dreamed
And this in my imagining I deemed
The after-mortal wandering of the soul.

Not thus, from cursed lightness having disembarked,
I look with worry on the chambers dark?
Already used to ringing high and raw,
Already judged not by the earthly law,
I, like a criminal, am being drawn along
To place of shame and execution long.
I see the glorious city, and the voice most dear,
As though there is no secret grave to fear,
Where day and night, in heat and in cold bent,
I must await the Final Judgment.

I will lead a man to dear one --
I don't want the little joy --
And I'll quietly lay to sleep
The glad, tired little boy.

In a chilly room once more
I will pray to Mother of God,
It is hard to be a hermit,
To be happy is also hard.

Only fiery sleep will come to me,
I'll enter a temple on the hill,
Five-domed, white, and stone-hewn,
On the paths remembered well.

The spring was still mysteriously swooning,
Across the hills wandered transparent wind
And the deep lake was growing blue among us --
A temple forged and kept not by mankind.

You were affrighted of our first encounter,
And prayed already for the second one,
And now today once more is the hot evening --
How low over the mountain dropped the sun..

You aren't with me, but this is not a parting:
For me triumphant news is in each moment.
I know that you can't even pronounce a word
For so complete within you is the torment.