Not one of my kin could cheer and protect my desolate heart. Scarce will he believe who bideth in courts, who proud and wine-flushed has joy of life and few baleful journeys, how I suffer forlorn in voyaging ever over the sea. Night shadows lowered, snow fell from the north, frost fettered the land, hail fell on the earth that coldest of grain. Yet thoughts even now throb at my heart bidding me venture the deep waters, the tumult of waves. Now and always desire is urging my heart to wander and seek out the land of strange peoples far away hence.
Groves burst into blossom, townships grow fair, the meadows are shining, mankind is bestirred.
All these things hurry him who thus hankers, the mind of high spirit, eager to wander, over the flood ways, to journey afar. Likewise the cuckoo, the warden of summer, with sad call urges, harshly foreboding bitter trials to his heart. He knows of this nothing, the prosperous man, what some of those suffer for whom stretch widest the ways of exile. Now fiercer to me are the joys of the Lord than this dead life fleeting on land. I do not believe that the blessings of earth will always endure.