European Elegies/Winter/The grave

by Karel Lodewyk Ledeganck

36.THE GRAVE

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The grave is deep and sunless,
An orifice of fright
Through which our loved ones enter
Strange lands of naked night.

No nightingale sings round it
Soft lyrics of the south;
Only love's bitter tear-drops
Bedrench its mossy mouth.

Here raven-weeded widows
Wring hands in fruitless pain,
And children's wailing voices
Invoke the dead in vain.

Here living mourners suffer
No solace or release;
But through these doors of darkness
The dead have passed to peace.

For hearts in earth's wild desert
Attain no calm retreat
From cruel storms of sorrow
Until they cease to beat.

From the Flemish of Karel Lodewyk Ledeganck.