1
Hands in your weakness on this staff weigh,
Weary legs, carry me one step more,
Cease now, my torture and anguish sore,
And leave me a little, if leave me you may,
To go but a moment along this way
And beseech for a mouthful of bread to sustain
My suffering body until I attain
Death, for which now as companion I pray.
2
Your alms I implore, pious Christians - give
To a wretch who begs, by fell wounds distressed,
For the sores of my hands and my feet attest
The pitiful state for which I grieve.
See the sad wounds that no skill may relieve,
The sores for which none can a cure assign:
Ah! but the anguish of death is mine,
More than Nature can bear is the pain I live !
(...)
4
Claim to your pity my suffering lays,
Since of health, grace and youth has fortune bereft me.
O world ever turning, how hast thou left me,
Who was valiant and strong in former days,
A man whom all men were wont to praise !
But whither is gone all my grace and my strength ?
O Death, who delays thee that thou com'st not at length,
Since my suffering now my last patience betrays ?
5
O patience of Job, whither now may I turn
Thus sorely beset by my suffering ?
Forgive me if thus a complaint from me wring
The torments that into my body burn.
O bountiful dew, why me dost thou spurn,
Who all the young flowers in May dost bless
And giv'st not a cloak to my nakedness,
Nor the pains of my body allow me to earn ?
6
Let Death now the girls and the ladies pass by,
Yea, suffer the lovely maidens to live,
And life to the flocks on the mountains give,
And birds that sing in the trees and sky.
But take thou me, Death, for why thus am I
Disdained, when others before their time
Thou killest ? Oh, bear my sad soul from the slime
Of this prison, and suffer me now to die.
...