Remembrance

The northeast blows, my favorite among winds, since it promises fiery spirit and a good voyage to mariners.

But go now, and greet the lovely Garonne, and the gardens of Bordeaux, where the path runs beside the steep bank, and the brook runs into the deep stream, and a noble pair of oak and silver poplars look down from above.   I remember well how the crowns of the elm trees lean over the mill, and a fig tree grows in the courtyard.

On holidays dark-skinned women walk upon the soft earth, and in March, when night and day are equal: cradling breezes waft across the gentle pathways, heavy with golden dreams.   But someone hand me the fragrant cup, full of dark light, that I may rest.

It would be sweet to sleep among the shadows.

It isn't good to stay mindless with human thoughts.

On the other hand, conversation is also good: to speak the thoughts of the heart, and to hear much of days of love, and of deeds that occur.   But where are our friends — Bellarmin and his companion?

Many are afraid to go to the source, since treasure is first found in the sea.

Like painters, they gather up earth's beauty,and they don't scorn winged war, or to live alone for years beneath the bare mast — where the city's festivities don't flash through the night, or the sound of strings and native dancing.   But now the men have left for India... from the windy peaks and vine-covered hills where the Dardogne comes down with the great Garonne; wide as an ocean the river flows outward.

But the sea takes and gives memory, and love fixes the eye diligently, and poets establish that which endures.