Whether I roam along the noisy streets
Whether I enter the peopled temple
Whether I sit by thoughtless youth
Haunt my thoughts me everywhere.
I say Swiftly go the years by:
However great our number now
Must all descend the eternal vaults—
Already struck has some one’s hour.
And if I gaze upon the lonely oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods
Will survive my passing age
As he survived my father’s age.
And if a tender babe I fondle
Already I mutter Fare thee well!
I yield my place to thee. For me
’T is time to decay to bloom for thee
Every year thus every day
With death my thought I join
Of coming death the day
I seek among them to divine.
Where will Fortune send me death?
In battle? In wanderings or on the waves
Or shall the valley neighboring
Receive my chilled dust?
But tho’ the unfeeling body
Can everywhere alike decay
Still I my birthland nigh
Would have my body lie.
Let near the entrance to my grave
Cheerful youth be in play engaged
And let indifferent creation
With beauty shine there eternally.