THE GRINDING MILLS OF EVIL 

Here now all the weed-oaks are in a fire-ditch, scarce breathing and dying: with yellowish roses the sprouted earth has embraced fire-roses. I am no man, nor can I be any man, of this natural, heat-stricken land. I did not want to be a possessor, nor a colonizer, but a hedgehog who finds sure crossroads in the maze of mountains, who sniffs out human truths, because I know: every bush, tree, and plant Only swallows for itself the remaining sunlight, And living creatures near the ground, breathing flora, With their sighs can only beg for prayer, If there were Someone to pity and comfort them: The true pearls of pools are clutched by the broken soul. 

My sizzling loneliness cannot be dissolved to the melodious waves of angelic voices, I step into the empty future, pregnant with uncertainty, hesitantly, like babies, when they are only trying out their ever-changing little feet, whether they will step surely and correctly? Yet the trustworthy are gradually vanishing, dwindling away from me, Truth-tellers I fear I cannot cling to the gentle cobwebs of fleeting memories, I cannot be rooted! Tame, tame, the wilderness before me, Spreads, scarce a wild thing left! On the cosmos-black hole of the night, a sooty sheet stretched out, The diamond branches of the stars are broken by mortal Time! 

Why did I once believe that in thy silent peaceful afterworld; I might find harmony, possessed peace? Machines have come: iron monsters, destructible by man's hand, Waging a hideous warfare: Green-scaled hope fearful, perhaps long since gone: Forest too, and me, too, to bone-thin scarecrows, The grinding mills of human wickedness sink! Shall I or shall I not be present? When in ominous vengeances a camp of cowards triumphs Instead of lion's pride's brave, I'll be comfortably ensconced Under the red hats of murderous gallants, - My thorny hedge fence stretched like a snare: I'll not be reached by the foul tearing of hyena teeth!