22/07/2025
The Untranslatables #03: Waldeinsamkeit
Anyone who’s ever gone for a walk alone in the woods knows that there’s a unique feeling that comes with it - though you won’t find a word for that in the English language. Enter the lovely German word WALDEINSAMKEIT. Waldeinsamkeit translates directly to ‘forest solitude’ or ‘the feeling of being alone in the woods’. The word consists of three parts: wald = forest or woods, einsam = lonely, -keit = the state of. Combined these three parts creates a particularly poetic word that has no equal in English.
Though we native English speakers may not have such a neat way to express this feeling, we can lake the long route to get there as seen in the following poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Waldeinsamkeit by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I do not count the hours I spend
In wandering by the sea;
The forest is my loyal friend,
Like God it useth me.
In plains that room for shadows make
Of skirting hills to lie,
Bound in by streams which give and take
Their colours from the sky;
Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
Or down the oaken glade,
O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made.
Cities of mortals woe begone
Fantastic care derides,
But in the serious landscape lone
Stern benefit abides.
Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,
And merry is only a mask of sad,
But, sober on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.
There the great Planter plants
Of fruitful worlds the grain,
And with a million spells enchants
The souls that walk in pain.
Still on the seeds of all he made
The rose of beauty burns;
Through times that wear, and forms that fade,
Immortal youth returns.
The black ducks mounting from the lake,
The pigeon in the pines,
The bittern's boom, a desert make
Which no false art refines.
Down in yon watery nook,
Where bearded mists divide,
The gray old gods whom Chaos knew,
The sires of Nature, hide.
Aloft, in secret veins of air,
Blows the sweet breath of song,
O, few to scale those uplands dare,
Though they to all belong!
See thou bring not to field or stone
The fancies found in books;
Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,
To brave the landscape's looks.
And if, amid this dear delight,
My thoughts did home rebound,
I well might reckon it a slight
To the high cheer I found.
Oblivion here thy wisdom is,
Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
For a proud idleness like this
Crowns all thy mean affairs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
