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 inthe palm of my right hand.

And as I speak my voice seems strange as ifit 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 faceand cover both my eyes;
there it lies in my hands with all its weightand 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