Little Song (to Leopoldine, September 3, 1847)

Tomorrow, with dawn’s whitewash on the fields,
I will leave. I can feel you waiting. Wait!
I shall walk through the woods and mountains.
I cannot stay away from you here any longer.

 

Eyes fixed into thought, though I walk,
I see nothing outside, I hear not a sound,
a strange old man hunched over my folded hands.
Day to my mind is a sad stain on the darkness.

 

I shall not look into the golden evening,
or at the sails in the distance raising Harfleur,
and when I arrive, I shall lay on your gravestone
twigs of green holly and heather picked in full flower.