MELCHIOR: The pack won't follow me here....

MELCHIOR: The pack won't follow me here.——While they are searching the brothels I can get my breath and discover how much I have accomplished.

Coat in tatters, pockets empty——I'm not safe from the most harmless.——I must try to get deeper into the wood to-morrow.

I have trampled down a cross——Even to-day the flowers are frozen!——The earth is cold all around——

In the domain of the dead!——

To climb out of the hole in the roof was not as hard as this road!——It was only there that I kept my presence of mind——

I hung over the abyss——everything was lost in it, vanished——Oh, if I could have stayed there.

Why she, on my account!——Why not the guilty!——Inscrutable providence!——I would have broken stones and gone hungry!——What is to keep me straight now?——Offense follows offense. I am swallowed up in the morass. I haven't strength left to get out of it—

I was not bad!——I was not bad!——I was not bad!——No mortal ever wandered so dejectedly over graves before.——Pah!——I won't lose courage! Oh, if I should go crazy——during this very night!

I must seek there among the latest ones!——The wind pipes on every stone in a different key——an anguishing symphony!——The decayed wreaths rip apart and swing with their long threads in bits about the marble crosses——A wood of scarecrows!——Scarecrows on every grave, each more gruesome than the other——as high as houses, from which the devil runs away.——The golden letters sparkle so coldly——The weeping willows groan and move their giant fingers over the inscriptions——

A praying angel——a tablet.

The clouds throw their shadows over it.——How the wind hurries and howls!——Like the march of an army it drives in from the east.——Not a star in the heavens——

Evergreen in the garden plot?——Evergreen?——A maiden——

HERE RESTS IN GOD Wendla Bergmann, born May 5, 1878, died from Anemia, October 27, 1892. Blessed are the Pure of Heart

And I am her murderer. I am her murderer!——Despair is left me——I dare not weep here. Away from here!——Away——

Wedekind, Frank. Spring Awakening: A Children’s Tragedy. Trans. Francis J. Ziegler, 1910. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35242/35242-h/35242-h.htm

Full-text of Wedekind's play

Synopsis of the play

Biographical information about Frank Wedekind

Wikipedia entry for Spring Awakening: A Children's Tragedy