My sorrows paint their cheeks with rouge each day, their feet with crimson lac! When words of joy make me weep, whom do I hold, embracing back?
Neither am I truly living, nor are you dying! Each day you seem to don new masks, forever lying!
You explain so much—how little of it do I understand? Dodging calculations and accounts, I seek only peace, that's all I demand!
Born with the wild nature to beat wings like birds, yet forced to live as such a calm, harmless soul! Let this life belong to some spineless creature then—this life can never be mine, never whole!
I too try quite well to seek false happiness in flowers or verse, But singing the beautiful world's praise, I die seventeen times each day, over and over in rehearse!
Do any of you know even a drop of all this anguish I bear? Then I beg of you—I can take no more—go ask the Creator for my death sentence, if you care!