Eternal Moments

The Collected Poems

First Epistle

When, at night, with drooping eyelids, I blow out the candles flare,
Time's unending path is followed only by the old clock there;
For just draw aside the curtains and the moon will flood the room
With a fire of passions summoned by the ardours of her gloom;
From the night of recollection she will resurrect an eon
Of distress - which we, however, sense as in a dreamlike paean.

Moon, arch-mistress of the ocean, you glide o'er the planet's sphere,
You give light to thoughts unthought-of and eclipse sorrow and fear;
Oh, how many deserts glimmer under your soft virgin light
And how many woods over shadow brooks and rivers burning bright!
Legion is the name of billows you dispose of as you please,
When you sail upon the ever restless solitude of seas;
Of resplendent climes, of gardens, palaces and castles old,
Which you impregnate with magic and to your own view unfold;
of the dwellings that you enter tiptoe by the window-pane
To gaze thoughtfully at foreheads that so many thoughts enchain!
A king's plans enmesh the planet for a century or more,
While the pauper hardly thinks of what his morrow has in store.

Though the dice of Fate have to them meted different rungs and ways,
Both submit to the same biddings of Death's genius and her rays;
Be they weak or be they mighty, unintelligent or clever.
All do minister to passions and their bondsmen are forever.
One is looking for the mirror, purposing to curl his mane,
One - for truth, hoping to find it in the space and time mundane.
From the yellow leaves he gathers relics of forgotten lore
Whose short-living Latin labels he will tally on the score.
One divides up the whole Terra at the counter of his stall,
Checking how much gold the oceans bear in their ships black and tall.
Over there an aged teacher, with his elbows jutting out
Through the threadbare jacket, reckons and the sums cause him to pout.
Shivering with cold he buttons his old dressing-gown austere,
Thrusts his neck into the collar and the cotton in his ear.
Skinny as he is and hunch-backed, a most wretched ne'er-do-well,
He has in his little finger all the world, heaven and hell;
For behind his brow are looming both the future and the past,
And eternity's thick darkness hell' unravel at long last.
As, of old, mythical Atlas propped the skies upon his shoulder,
He props universe and Chronos in a number - which is bolder...