With air pure and a sky that is clear,
I'm as gay as a king could be...
This summer recalls the year
That we fell in love — I and she!

The grave of that wife of mine
Would hardly hold enough wine
To quench the thirst that I've got;
— and that is saying a lot.

I threw her corpse down a well
With the stones that rimmed it yonder.
She lies asleep where she fell.
— Shall I ever forget her, I wonder?

But our sweetest vows of yore
(And nothing annuls such an oath)
And to patch things up so that both
Could be drunk with love as before,

I begged for a rendezvous
At night, in a lonely lane,
She came, mad thing! — No ado!
— We're all more or less insane!

She still was pretty, although
Worn out with working — while I,
I loved her past bearing; and so
I said: "You've got to die!"

Who understands me? Has one
'Mong those fellow sots of mine
Ever dreamt in his nights, as I've done,
Of weaving a shroud out of wine?

How could hopeless debauchees
As soulless as things of steel
Ever know the love I feel,
True love with its mysteries,

Its black enchantments and fears,
Its hellish procession if pains,
Its poison phials and tears,
Its rattle of bones and of chains!

At last I'm alone and free!
Tonight dead drunk I shall be;
Without fear or remorse, like a dog
On the ground I shall lie; like a dog

I shall sleep — as dead men do.
And maybe some skidding truck
Or great cart piled with muck
And stones will cut me in two,