European Elegies/Winter/Memento mori
38.MEMENTO MORI
Man and woman, meditateOn your unrelenting fate!Though you love this fragile clay,Hoping to prolong its dayIn the light of Beauty's eyesAnd her fleeting paradise,All the prayers of passioned breathCannot stay the hand of Death.
No man's wisdom can availTo complete the broken tale.Death will steal our every grace,Leaving nothing, fame or face;Death comes soon to small and great:No man is of such estateNor of such possessions vastHe may cozen Death at last.
Though you linger here below,Youth and Age alike must go.All must die; your lives are vain;Nothing of you shall remain.Briefer is mortalityThan the winking of an eye.Thus I view my life's distressGulfed in Death's forgetfulness.
From the Old High German (Anonymous).