Self-loving and stubborn,
I greet the New Year alone.
Mother waited, but waited in vain—
Her son turned out a beast, unknown.
Not that I’m fully drunk,
But today, everyone drinks.
I clink glasses with the mirror, my friend.
(Ah, too bad this friend never lies!)
Alas, I see an old man,
Life flashed by, the song is sung…
And only in dreams the river flows again,
You laugh, and summer laughs along.
You are distant, yet near,
So much sun, so much light appears!
And to myself, I seem a poet.
(Lord! Have mercy on the fool!)