What it means to rest at the day’s end.
Something’s always churning in my mind,
Fermenting there. Desire and longing
In my breast forever grind –
But what of it? Life’s a half-written song.
I’m just afraid I won’t have time
To bring it to fruition, that no rhyme
Could ever ease this fearful ache –
And I could never live for another person’s sake.
There is a time when the quick mind freezes;
There is a gloaming of the soul, when tomorrow
Is another day and the mental logjam eases.
In the half-light between joy and sorrow,
The soul itself is constrained;
Life is hateful, but death is unexplained.
You’ll find the root of the torment in yourself –
And heaven cannot be blamed for anything else.
This state, to which I’m long resigned,
Cannot be expressed in any tongue,
Neither that of demons, nor divine:
No such cares or worries there among
Those for whom the terms are more refined.
Only in a man are they combined:
This fractious blend of sacred and profane,
From which source arises all his pain.
No one ever gets just what he wants
Or whom he loves, and even he,
To whom was sanctioned happy chance,
Considering the past, will come to see
He could have been still happier,
His satisfaction snappier,
Had his hopes not been poisoned by his fate –
For past conditions are hard to recreate…
When, shepherded before the raging storm,
A billow breaks and surges with its foam,
It still recalls the kyle where it was born,
That tranquil harbour that it once called home.
And, perhaps, this wave will foam again
To such a bay, but will not find its kin:
No one who has wandered the high seas
Can ever hope for shelter or for ease.
I foresaw my fate, my own demise;
Precociously, I set the seal thereon;
And, how I suffer, no one need cognise –
Save the one whose verdict is foregone.
And, though banal, my death – and at whose hands –
Will seem grotesque; in foreign lands,
There’ll be amazement; but at home
Everyone will loudly curse my name.
Everyone? Not quite, there is one creature;