On a noisy carnival evening fall
We went joint to feast of the ball
In a merry garish crowd.
And among us, wrinkled, decrepit,
Withered, frail and very sick,
The publican went on grayed.
Everything was young among us:
Maidens, young men with flowers,
Laughter and shouts, a stream of words
Now we pour wine into bumper,
We look, the maidens are no more —
The old man has got them as a lord.
A sick man with feeble fist,
Moving slowly by his foots,
How turned their heads besot?
And the one song from the maidens
That we didn’t know how to present
As he now gave them a lot…