OH, cold and dark is the shop ! I hold the
iron, stand and press ; my heart is weak, I
groan and cough, my sick breast scarcely heaves.

I groan and cough, and press and think;
my eye grows damp, a tear falls ; the iron is hot,
my little tear, it seethes and seethes, and will not
dry up.

I feel no strength, it is all used up ; the iron falls
from my hand, and yet the tear, the silent tear, the
tear, the tear boils more and more.

My head whirls, my heart breaks, I ask in woe :
' Oh, tell me, my friend in adversity and pain, O
tear, why do you not dry up in seething ?

' Are you, perhaps, a messenger, and announce to
me that other tears are coming? I should like to
know it : say, when will the great woe be ended ? '

I should have asked more and more of the Un-
rest, the turbulent tear ; but suddenly there began
to flow more tears, tears without measure, and I at
once understood that the river of tears is very
deep. . . .