For A Lady I Know
She even thinks that up in heaven Her class lies late and
While poor black cherubs rise at seven To do celestial chores
She even thinks that up in heaven Her class lies late and
While poor black cherubs rise at seven To do celestial chores
You know the place: then Leave Crete and come to us waiting where the grove is pleasantest, by precincts sacred to you; incense smokes on the altar, cold streams murmur through the apple branches, a young rose thicket shades the ground and quiveri...
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear
I plucked my soul out of its secret place,
And held it to the mirror of my eye,
To see it like a star against the sky,
A twitching body quivering in space,
it's 1962 March 28thI'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train night is fallingI never knew I likednight descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain I don't likecomparing nightfall to a tired birdI didn't know I loved the earthcan ...
Gone,
I say and walk from church,refusing the stiff procession to the grave,letting the dead ride alone in the hearse
It is June
I am tired of being brave
I know a manwho photographed the view he sawfrom the window of the room where he made loveand not the face of the woman he loved there
Translated by Chana Bloch
We know this much Death is an evil; we have the gods' word for it; they too would die if death were a good thing
I don't know if you're alive or dead
Can you on earth be sought,
Or only when the sunsets
Be mourned serenely in my thought