To gloomy thicket
Rushes the reindeer wild,
And with the sparrows have
Long ago the rich folks
Into their swamps for shelter sunk.
Easy to follow the chariot,
When 'tis Fortune drives.
Just as the lumbering cart
Over the hard, smooth road rolls,
After a monarch's march.
But aside who fareth?
In the woods he loses his path;
Swiftly behind him
The boughs fly together,
The grass stands up again,
The desert o'erwhelms him.
Ah, but who healeth the pangs of
Him, whose balm becomes poison?
Who but hate for man
From the fulness of love hath drunk?
First despised, and now a despiser,
Wastes he secretly
All his own best worth,
Brooding over himself.
Is there on thy psalter,
Father of love, one tone
Which his ear would welcome?
Oh, then, quicken his heart!
Open his beclouded look
Over the thousand fountains
All around him thirsting there
In the desert.
