Arrest with a long and piercing cry the traveller on his road, so that he says to himself, "What has it seen?"
"Whence does it come? What does it mean, this mournful cry in the distance?"
What furnace fires these cantons of gold? What chase leads the wind in the desert and the country of infinite trees? What lament is this that rises?
Certainly someone great is going to die and that is why the wind is raised,
That it may bear away the flame of his soul, and that the oak may be shaken to its base.
It is Nature who demands that she should receive again her illustrious child!
She has lent him to us long enough to perform the task ordained,
And now she takes him back again, the cycle being completed.
And we, insensible and stupid,
We have let him slip from our hands like flashing gold that falls and sinks in the stream!