The Song Of The Beggar

I am always going from door to door,

whether in rain or heat,

and sometimes I will lay my right ear in

the palm of my right hand.

And as I speak my voice seems strange as if

it were alien to me,

for I'm not certain whose voice is crying:

mine or someone else's.

I cry for a pittance to sustain me.

The poets cry for more.

In the end I conceal my entire face

and cover both my eyes;

there it lies in my hands with all its weight

and looks as if at rest,

so no one may think I had no place where-

upon to lay my head.

Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming