For how many hundreds of years,
how many thousands of times
have generations of women worn
their hands down
polishing
and polishing the wide boards of this floor?

Mark of the hands of so many generations
of good-hearted people;
clear mirror that deepens with each generation;
and the sky joined in kindly understanding:
where they seem joined in wearing away together,
I rest in their warm embrace.
That floor gleaming in Goethe's house
promises comfort, and recovery from any illness,
whatever its cause.

Fruit of the mulberry tree
and ball of the cotton plant
show their faces in this floor,
reflecting as if new born.

How utterly colorless it would all appear
if one Goethe at least had not been born
in a corner so well tended as this.