Why do you flaunt before my aching head
Love’s blood-stained rose, held boldly in your hand?
Why all this flame? I would ask for a tear instead
And be content with a lowly amaranth.
My head swoons weakly beneath love’s spent caress
I have emptied long ago their cup of lies;
And the feeble flame that lights my heart’s recess
This, you’ll put out with the tear drops from your eyes.
I do not blame myself, the time, the world,
Lord knows that now I would dread an excess of joy;
Across my lips, reproach shall not be hurled,
My soul refuses hope’s supporting buoy.
Why should we love, I ask you. Tell me why?
When we no longer feel love’s scorching breath.
Why look for peace, where haste and storms speed by,
Where happiness to man comes after death.
Why should we tempt old dreams again to life,
When strange to us appears their joyous dance.
Why should we live in Fall as when our Spring was rife,
Why should we weep when life laughs at its chance.
Our life is like an empty banquet hall
Where you feel only hunger and a thirst,
When passion’s flame grows weaker with each call,
Never again into a blaze to burst.
Where will you find a shield when life has fled,
When from feeble hands the sword drops to the ground?
When the flowers you would wreathe about your head,
Will grow in ridicule upon your mound?
Why flaunt you then before my aching head
Love’s blood-stained rose, held boldly in your hand?
Why all this flame? I would seek a tear instead
And be content with a lowly amaranth.