Nocturne

I want to express my anguish in verses that speak

of my vanished youth, a time of dreams and roses,

and the bitter defloration of my life

by many small cares and one vast aching sorrow.

And the voyage to a dim orient in half-seen ships,

the seeds of prayer that flowered in blasphemies,

the bewilderment of a swan among the puddles,

the false nocturnal blue of a sick Bohemia.

Far-off harpsichord, silent and forgotten,

that never gave my dreams the sublime sonata;

orphan skiff, heraldic tree, dark nest

which the night made lovely with its silver light;

Hope still aromatic with fresh herbs; the trill

of the nightingale in the morning in the spring;

the white lily cut down by a fatal destiny;

the search for happiness, and evil's persecutions--

And the dismal amphora with its divine poison

that causes the inner torments of this life;

the fearful knowledge of our human mire;

and the horror of knowing that we are transitory,

the horror of walking blindly, among alarms,

toward the unknowable, toward the inevitable;

and the brute nightmares that rack our weeping sleep,

from which no one but She can wake us up!