Wandering

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Caspar David Friedrich Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer / The Wanderer above the See and Fog (1818)

I call myself – Wanderer. Right – it’s a song by Franz Schubert: Der Wanderer / The Wanderer (Georg Philipp Schmidt von Lübeck in my poor nonpoetical translation) –
I come from the mountains,
It steams the valley, roars the sea.
I wander silent, joyless, sad
And always sigh and ask – o, where?

The sun seems here so rough, so cold,
The flowers faded, the life – too old,
And what they say, is empty sound;
I am a stranger everywhere.

Where are you, my beloved land?
Sought, yearned after, never seen!
That land where hope is fresh and green,
That land where all my roses bloom.

My friends there walk,
My deads there rest,
That country speaks my mother tongue,
O land, where are you, where? . . .

I wander silent, joyless, sad
And always sigh and ask – o, where?
Like ghostly whisper the answer comes:
“Where you are not, ther’s happiness.”

Franz Schubert Der Wanderer (Ausgabe Hannover)

Am I depressive, hopeless, sad? No, not at all. I take first of all the very beginning for my use: I’m wandering, finding new places and landscapes: on foot, with bike, car, boat, steamer… And in my mind, too.
Well, Schubert wrote also Das Wandern (Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust, das Wandern! Wandering – that’s the miller’s joy!). And quite not only for millers (who is nowadays a miller?). Today there are millions and millions of wanderers. I’m one of them. And You can be the next one.

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