European Elegies/Spring/To Adolphe Gaiffe
73.TO ADOLPHE GAIFFE
Sweet youth, with face sunlit and jolly,Let not cold-reasoned melancholyExtinguish thy delightful folly;
For it is wisdom. Love good wine,Fair women, April days divine—They are enough. The rest, decline.
Smile, even if black bereavement come!And, when the gay primroses bloom,Scatter their blossoms on the tomb.
For to the body lapped in clayWhat message matters but to sayLove ruled indeed for one brief May?
"Let us seek truth in life's brief hours,"Cry dull old men, with frown that lours.Words! Empty words! Let us pick flowers!
From the French of Théodore de Banville.