| Margarete Münsterberg, ed., trans. A Harvest of German Verse. 1916. | | | | In the Express Train | | By Ludwig Fulda (1862–1939) |
| | | I HASTEN by a city lightning-fast | |
| Here in the rattling train: I see | |
| Streets, houses, people shooting past, | |
| Wagons, lanterns, signs in flight, | |
| Overlapping in my sight; | 5 |
| Blotted, dim they seem to me. | |
| Here I lived once long ago, | |
| Lived for years | |
| In youth’s impassioned sacred glow, | |
| In love and hate, in hopes and fears. | 10 |
| Round the corner there— | |
| To the left, by the square— | |
| Lives my one-time worshipped fate; | |
| Behind the walls there, flitting past, | |
| I could almost hold it fast— | 15 |
| No: too late—too late! | |
| The last few houses—the empty plain: | |
| The long-lost world is fled again, | |
| With joys and sorrows great | |
| Of storm-blessed youthful strife.— | 20 |
| I feel as if this moment I | |
| Had like a stranger hurried by | |
| My own forgotten life! | | | | |
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