“When the leeches have sucked enough blood, one simply has to sprinkle some salt on their backs and they fall off – But you, my friend, how can I get rid of you? Your despairing cousin”

“First, I thought, almost despairing,This must crush my spirit now;Yet I bore it, and am bearing-Only do not ask me how.”

“Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies-- but not before they have been hanged.”

“I wept in my dreams. I dreamed you lay in the grave;I awoke, and the tearsstill poured down my cheeks.I wept in my dreams,I dreamed you had left me;I awoke and I went on weeping long and bitterly.I wept in my dreams,I dreamed you were still kind to me;I awoke, and stillthe flow of my tears streams on. ”

“All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country... and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it. ”

“Still is the night, it quiets the streets down,In that window my love would appear;She's long since gone away from this town,But this house where she lived still remains here.A man stands here too, staring up into space,And wrings his hands with the strength of his pain:It chills me, when I behold his pale faceFor the moon shows me my own features again!You spirit double, you specter with my faceWhy do you mock my love-pain soThat tortured me here, here in this placeSo many nights, so long ago?”

“I once saw many flowers blooming Upon my way, in indolence I scorned to pick them in my going And passed in proud indifference. Now, when my grave is dug, they taunt me; Now, when I'm sick to death in pain, In mocking torment still they haunt me, Those fragrant blooms of my disdain.”