Whence your silken gown, my maid?
Ah, you'd fain be haughty,
Yet perchance you've proved a jade
With some satyr naughty!
Waiting long, the lovelorn wight
Is filled with rage and poison:
Even so on sultry night
Toadstools grow in foison.
Pinching sore, in devil's mood,
Love doth plague my crupper:
Truly I can eat no food:
Farewell, onion-supper!
Seaward sinks the moon away,
The stars are wan, and flare not:
Dawn approaches, gloomy, grey.
Let Death come! I care not!
Souls that lack determination
Rouse my wrath to white-hot flame!
All their glory's but vexation,
All their praise but self-contempt and shame!
Since I baffle their advances.
Will not clutch their leading-string.
They would wither me with glances
Bitter-sweet, with hopeless envy sting.
Let them with fell curses shiver.
Curl their lip the livelong day!
Seek me as they will, forever
Helplessly their eyes shall go astray!
