Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, LIV

Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes

        It is not strange this framework here
        Of skin and bones at last has grown
        So loath to bear my madcap brain;
        ’Tis true I am not old and sere,
        But from the cup of life I own
        I drink so eagerly the pain,
        A century of life, I’d say,
        I’ve fused and poured into each day.

        And so to-day were I to die.
        That I have lived I’d not deny;
        Without the house seems new and gay,
        Within live ruin and decay.

Decay sits there, alas!   His wizened face
My sorrow ever mirrors to me now:
For there’s a grief that passing stamps its trace
Deep in the heart, if not upon the brow.

Credit

From Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1891) by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes. This poem is in the public domain.