Poems (Eminescu)/Ode
ODE
(in Sapphic metre)
That I’m doomed to die I believed it never;
Always young and clad in my mantle I wandered,
Dreaming eyes uplifted for ever fixed on
Solitude’s starlight.
When so sudden, there on my pathway rising,
Sorrow, O so painfully sweet, thou camest!
Then with deep delight to the dregs I drank thy
Merciless death cup.
And like Nessus burning alive and tortured,
Poisoned as was Hercules with his garment,
This great fire that’s blazing in me I cannot
Quench with an ocean.
My own dream consuming me, sore lamenting,
On my pyre I die thus to ashes burning…
Can I from it living arise as bright as
Phoenix the immortal?
Troubling eyes, go out of my way for ever!
Back to me indifference dreary come now!
That I may in quietness die, O give me
Back my old selfhood!