, translated by the illustrious Walter Kaufmann.Rimus remedium
Or: How sick poets console themselves
From your old lips
O Time, you drooling ghoul,
Hour upon hour drips.
My nausea cries to no avail:
"Damn, damn the grip
Of your eternal rule!"
World--hard as stones:
A glowing bull--he hears no crying.
Pain writes with daggers that are flying
Into my bones:
"World has no heart;
The fool bears her grudge and groans."
Pour poppies, pour,
O fever! poison in my brain!
You test my brow too long with pain.
Why do you ask, "For what--reward?"
--Hah! Damn the whore
And her disdain!
No! Come back! Hold!
I hear the rain, outside its cold--
I should be gentler? You want a caress?
--Take this! It glistens; it is gold.--
You--"happiness"?
You, fever, I should bless?--
A gust--the door
Flies open--rain--my bed gets wet--
The lights blown out--mishaps galore.
--Without a hundred rhymes, a wight--
I bet, I bet--
Would be done for!
