You said: “I’ll find a new land, find another sea—

You said, “I will go to another place, to another shore.

A new city’ll turn up, a better one than this.

Another city can be found that’s better than this.

Every effort I make is condemned, turns out amiss,

All that I struggle for is doomed, condemned to failure;

While my heart, like a corpse, lies buried deep,

and my heart is like a corpse interred.

And my mind—how long will my mind stay sunk in stagnant sleep?

How long will my mind stagger under this misery?

Here, wherever I look, wherever I turn my gaze

Wherever I turn, wherever I look

I see the blackened wreck of all my days,

I see the blackened ruins of my life,

So many years spent, ruined, lost by me.”

which for years on end I squandered and wrecked and ravaged”.

There are no new places you’ll find, you’ll catch no other tide.

You will find no other place, no other shores.

This city will follow you. The streets you tread

This city will possess you, and you’ll wander the same

Will be the same, it’s in these same houses your head

streets. In these same neighborhoods you’ll grow old;

Will turn grey, in the same neighborhoods that you’ll age.

in these same houses you’ll turn gray.

Always you’ll end up in this city. Don’t hope to turn the page

Always you’ll return to this city. Don’t even hope for another.

To an Elsewhere for which there’s no ship for you, no road shows clear.

There’s no boat for you, there’s no other way out.

Just as you destroyed your life back here

In the way you’ve destroyed your life here,

In this tiny retreat, so you ruined it world-wide.

in this little corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else.