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That's archaic use of the construct etw. ist mein\dein\sein meaning etw. gehört mir\dir\ihm. It's still used and common with objects and the - today - correct declension: Wem gehören die Schuhe? - Das sind meine. ...but is not so common for things, that can't physically belong to a person like years, time or guilt. I'll try a modern (not so poetic) ...

While writing this answer, i saw you already found the solution yourself, but maybe some of the links i've collected are still useful. Nice question - you've hit the difficult problem of sentences without a subject. "Mir ist kalt." lacks a subject in nominative case, but the sentence is still grammatically correct. The other way - "Ich bin kalt." is ...

"Ich bin kalt" und "Mir ist kalt" are two absolutely different things. Regarding the latter sentence, "Mir ist kalt": I guess it's the most common way to express that you're feeling cold, for instance: Kannst du bitte das Fenster schließen, mir ist kalt. Alternatively, you can say "Ich friere" (I'm freezing). However, the former sentence "Ich bin ...

Check out the Keine Lust lyrics: He sings "Und merke bald ich bin schon lange kalt \ So kalt, mir ist kalt ...". As stated on the website: "Kalt" here [in the first part] is used not to mean temperature, but temperament. In the next line, "Mir ist kalt" is used to mean temperature.

I should have googled first, I guess, but I did it after I read @efie 's answer. I found this and it explained that "mir ist kalt" is more like saying "it is cold to me" and that this and other phrases involving feeling and impressions often take this reflexive form.

I would suggest to think of it as my own instead of mine. That would make mein an adjective instead of a pronoun. Das Auto ist blau. Das Auto ist mein. vs. Das Auto ist meins. I can't really capture that in English because mine has also an adjective feel to it but the German meine/s/r/n... really feels like a pronoun. Das Auto ist ...

Note that we need to distinguish between the genetive cause meiner of the personal pronoun ich and the various forms of the possessive pronoun mein. For an actual usage of the genetive cause, check some verbs that need a genetive object: Er erinnert sich meiner (=Er erinnert sich an mich). Er schämt sich meiner (=Er schämt sich wegen mir). Still, your ...

When it comes to temperature, you would use "Mir ist..." normally. There are other connotations to using "Ich bin kalt / warm / heiß", which you would want to avoid. For example, "Ich bin heiß" would mean "I am horny" "Ich bin warm" means "I am gay" "Ich bin kalt" means "I am frigid" I suppose that "Mir ist kalt" is a statement about an external ...