Anchor not your boat today, oh boatman!

True, there is a storm and the waters are in blood-tide;

Yet I beseech, do not aspire to return home.

In the first rains of this earth, you sailed in your boat:

What makes you want today to return?

You have gone from place to place; and now at last

you think of returning. Your hope is that at the

landing stage near your home, you will see a light.

Alas! You know not:

In summer, your house caught fire and was reduced to ashes;

She who was in it–nobody knows where she is gone:

do you then intend to seek her from place to place?

Say the villagers: she has gone far away, she cares for you not!

You will find your house deserted: how should you bear it, returning after so long?

So I say: let us not now return there;

Rather, let us sail on in our boat.

At the landing to some market, we shall halt:

And we shall ask the people:

"Have any of you seen her whose eyes are black?

Have you heard any song like hers that vibrates in the

sail of some boat on the river far away?"

Perchance, some afternoon we shall sight her:

We shall see her come to the river for water–

And then, Oh boatman,

She won’t recognize you–

She will go back after filling her pitcher:

And again float on the waters shall we:

You and I, Oh boatman!