If you have been following our blog for a while, you know we have a thing for Goethe around here. One of my favorite Goethe poems is short and sweet – Wandrer’s Nachtlied II, which I translate as Wayfarer’s Evensong II. I call it an “evensong” to preserve the parallel title with Wandrer’s Nachlied I “Der Du von dem Himmel bist…” even though this one is not as prayer-like as I. Since I have never found a translation I really like, here is my stab at it:

I love this poem because it is short and relaxing. I say it to myself when I need to relax.

In my translation, I have tried to preserve to the best I can some of the vocalic features in English. I love the playing with the “uh” sound that the German does, so I tried to preserve that in English with the “ee” sound.

I thought about better preserving the syllabic structure of the pentultimate line by having it read “just wait, soon YOU’LL TO” but decided it was more important to end with the “soon”.

What I COULD NOT DO no matter how I tried was to preserve the following:
*the interesting parallel between “Ruh” – a noun – and “du” – a pronoun.
*the ingenious pairing between “Walde” and “balde” – especially where “balde” ends the pentultimate line hanging abruptly and us just waiting for more. Just like this poem.