Obwalden – Funeral Service – Orator – Before sinking into the blue flood, the swan still dreams and sings drunk to death!

Prayer and Meditation

What is it that hurts me? As in a dream, the reason for where I stand already lies. The forests hardly murmur from the dark heights. It comes as it will, what's the matter with me - how soon everything will be quiet. Before sinking into the blue flood, the swan still dreams and sings drunk to death.

The summer-weary earth withering lets all its fire glow in the grapes. Sun, spraying sparks, sinking, gives the earth embers to drink once more. Until, star upon star, to embrace the drunkards. The wonderful night has risen.

Funeral Service - Obwalden

But spare me, death, my youth still steams bloodstream-red. I have not yet completed my work, nor is the future shrouded in haze. So spare me, death. When later, death, my life is spent, I'll go to work when my tired heart bends. The world is silent to me, then carry me away, death. I'm still holding the beautiful bowl of life with both hands, I'm still drinking and I can't finish and I don't think about the last bit.

"But one day the bowl will be empty, you slurped the last dregs." So I drank, what do I want more, to death a full life. It stretches endlessly, the white surface, empty except for the last breath of life. The lively pulse has long since stopped, the streams, even the cold wind no longer stirs. The raven there, in the mountain of snow and ice, frozen and hungry, burrows deep.

And if he doesn't dig out the morsel of food, I believe he digs himself into the grave. The sun, flashing through the clouds once more, throws a last look at the barren land. Yet, sitting yawning on the throne of life, death in white festive clothing defies her.