How From Between My Hands (excerpt)
How from between my hands you
slip away
Oh how you flow away, my years,
my life.
What muted steps you take, O
frigid death,
When with your silent feet you
make all equal.
All These Are Swept Away In One Brief Year (excerpt)
All these are swept away in one brief year,
mortal life scoffed at, the spirited impetus
of eager and valiant steel and icy marble
which dares to oppose time with its resistance.
Before the foot knows how to walk, it moves
along the road to death, whereto I send
my obscure life, a poor and turbid river,
which towering waves of black sea then drink
up.
Love Constant Beyond Death (excerpt)
So it will shut my eyes, this final shadow,
which bears away from me the whitened
day
and so will it unbind this soul of mine
now of its eager and anxious
beguilements.
But not even from the remotest shoreline
will it depart, that burning memory,
which though inflamed knows how to
swim the icy waters,
casting aside respect for even the
severest law.
- Francisco de Quevedo
