Fata Morgana [English translation]

Deep in the Sahara

on a dromedary

a German researcher rode by the grove of date palms

There the mummie's digger

saw a girl named Laila;

Magical excitement penetrates his legs

He called: "tell me, who are you, who makes me drunken?

Come and heal my wounds!"

She spoke: "I am Laila, the queen of the night!"

Simsalabim! she had disappeared!

Like a mirage,

so near and nevertheless as far,

as a mirage.

Abarakadabara!

And no longer there she was!

he follows the singing,

there where the dates hang,

the mirage named Laila and did not see not the danger.

An old Beduin

sat on a dune,

bit into the gold coin and spoke: "God has willed it!

Oh sir, one calls me Hadschi Halef Ibrahim.

Free you from her charm, otherwise you are dead!" the Muezzin called,

and away was the old gatherer of dates.

Like a mirage,

so near and nevertheless as far,

as a mirage.

Abarakadabara!

And no longer there she was!

It crept the gentleman

more dead already than alive

under the hot sun through the desert sand.

"By the beard of the prophet,

now I must decease!"

He spoke and raised his hand a last time,

and he saw the mirage on the horizon,

when he died in the country of the Arabs.

The vultures over it croaked: "God has willed it!

A corpse at last!"

Like a mirage,

so near and nevertheless as far,

as a mirage.

Abarakadabara!

And no longer there it was!

Like a mirage,

so near and nevertheless as far,

as a mirage.

Abarakidabari!

And away it was!

• Artist:E.A.V.