fritz werfel - drinking song

we’re drunks
serenely hunched over our deaths.
drowsily we stagger,
shady and evasive.
is there a secret there?
what’s that knocking below?
nothing, there’s no secret,
nothing’s knocking.

let us live!
and swell with that ultimate vanity
that dulls and intoxicates!
grant us that sweet lie
our all-nourishing motherland!
where are we from?
we don’t know…
but we chat about it and around about it
random prattle.

we can’t bear to watch the poor
emerging from black rivers at night.

are deep woods within us,
bell towers over treetops?
away, away!
we live all over the place.
pass the jug full of black sleep!
just let us live,
and let us drink, drink!

what if you woke up!
what if i watched over my own death!
how my feet would flee!
i wouldn’t be here under the elms.
i wouldn’t be anywhere.
the trees’d bathe in sunlight,
the cliffs’d loom like hangmen!
i’d hurl myself into any and every fire,
to burn out in torment!

we’re drinkers hunched over our deaths,
all tucked in by the word.
dozing and gazing into the lamp!
no secret there?
no, nothing there!
come then and sing!
with maracas! dancers!
come in! we don’t know anything.
we just want to brawl and gamble.
just let us drink, drink!