I'll kill my time and dreams, then.
I'll mend my cloak in the dark.
As thanks, I'll know that icy skies
Will filter starlight through the holes.

Shall I allow the sky to fill my cloak
with vast treasure?
Richly clad, shall I pass with
torn shroud?
Lucifers on my elbow, gilded
on my breast,
Tattooed with lightning, shall I
not conquer, not fight?

Am I to beat time's mire with
closed eyes?
Shall dolts strip me of my cloak on the road,
sneering, tavern-drunk?
Like butterflies who endure the caterpillar
bearing them through the dust,
Shall I endure within me the burden
of two lives?

A man, no less worn out, will open
in the morning
My commermorative tomb. With immaculate hand
Break me, death-changed into bread,
To pieces in the sun.
And to my brothers who follow, he whispers
he'll share me out.

But the day that passes in its passing woulds
Humbles my staff and bends my lilies low.
So my heart hangs like a padlock
With lost keys at the gates of light.

Why can I not know, why can I not hear
What the sense of day is and the price
of eking it out?
Open yourself to me, my soul, through
the flute's seven eyes,
And let song drown life and death.