European Elegies/Winter/The old bridge
43.THE OLD BRIDGE
About the bridge's crumbling piers
The quiet river ripples by.
We lean to hear its liquid sigh:
Its ancient story fills our ears.
The quiet river ripples by.
We lean to hear its liquid sigh:
Its ancient story fills our ears.
It tells of lovers long ago
Who loitered on this parapet,
And learned, as we do, how to let
Love sway them like the stream below.
Who loitered on this parapet,
And learned, as we do, how to let
Love sway them like the stream below.
It tells how, with the years that glide,
Matrons, once maids, passed here again,
Pale with maternal care and pain,
Their tender children by their side.
Matrons, once maids, passed here again,
Pale with maternal care and pain,
Their tender children by their side.
It tells how centuries unguessed
Have rolled by slowly since the day
It saw them, hearse-borne, take their way
Across the bridge to their last rest.
Have rolled by slowly since the day
It saw them, hearse-borne, take their way
Across the bridge to their last rest.
Alas, how soon we too are gone!
That babbled message chills the blood:
Man fades down time's lethean flood;
Earth's crumbling arch lasts dully on.
That babbled message chills the blood:
Man fades down time's lethean flood;
Earth's crumbling arch lasts dully on.
From the Catalan of Emili Guanyavents.