Do our words (listen, listen)
not rise
from that old air?
I have exhumed you.
And at last you see the sun again,
You speak to me, oh friend!
You were speaking these words.
Do you not hear? Do you not hear?
But who gathered them?
From the empty riverbeds of the wood
rise your ways,
Which the wind dissolved.
You were saying: “I read your heart.
You do not love me.
You think that it is the last time!”
I see again [a] mouth somewhat withered.
“You do not love me. It is the last time,
But before you abandon me,
Fulfill [your] vow.
Oh! that I may miss you [in my] heart!
Do you not forgive me if already the hair
Upon the kissed temples is white?”
Look at this hair, the signs of the years
On that pale neck;
And I said to you: “But hush! I love you.”
Your lovely eyes were [filled]1 with tears
Beneath my kisses.
“You're deceiving me, you're deceiving me,” you responded,
Kissing my hands.
“What does it matter? I know you're deceiving me;
But tomorrow, perhaps, you will love me dead.”
The sky of the bed was deep,
And the deep bed dark as a tomb;
The body was without a veil,
And in the deep bed it seemed already impure.
I saw through the open balcony a distant country
Cut through by a fickle river,
Enclosed by a wreath of cliffs
Which were burning brightly with a vermilion light
In the summer day; and the winds were carrying scents
From the far away gardens
Around which were walking powerful women,
Singing among lustful flowers.