Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, LIV

^{Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes}

        It is not strange this framework here
        Of skin and bones at last has grown
        So loath to bear my madcap brain;
        ’Tis true I am not old and sere,
        But from the cup of life I own
        I drink so eagerly the pain,
        A century of life, I’d say,
        I’ve fused and poured into each day.

        And so to-day were I to die.
        That I have lived I’d not deny;
        Without the house seems new and gay,
        Within live ruin and decay.

Decay sits there, alas!   His wizened face
My sorrow ever mirrors to me now:
For there’s a grief that passing stamps its trace
Deep in the heart, if not upon the brow.