From day to day; from night to night
My summer passes; autumn creeps
Nearer; before mine eyes the light
Fades out; my soul is blind and sleeps.
Everything sleeps; and I ? I ponder:
Do I yet live, or do I wander,
A dead thing, through my term of years,
A void of laughter as of tears ?
Come to me, my fate ! Where art thou ?
Oh, I have no fate. God, if
Thou dost scorn to love me,
Grant me but thy hate !
Only let my heart not wither
Slowly, day by day,
Useless as a fallen tree-trunk
Rotting by the way.
Let me live, and live in spirit
Loving all mankind;
Or, if not, then let my curses
Strike the sunlight blind.
Wretched is the fettered captive,
Dying, and a slave;
But more wretched he that, living,
Sleeps, as in a grave,
Till he falls asleep for ever,
Leaving not a sign
That there faded into darkness
Something once divine.
Come to me, my fate!
Where art thou ?
Oh, I have no fate.
God, if Thou dost scorn to love me,
Grant me but thy hate!
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