Poems (Eminescu)/Solitude
SOLITUDE
Near my simple fir-wood table
With the curtains drawn I sit,
In the grate the fire is flick’ring,
Musingly I look at it.
And like swallows sweet illusions
Come in flights and wander all;
Dear remembrances seem crickets
Chirping in a ruined wall,
Or caressing come and sadly,
Heavy in the soul they stop,
Like the wax from candles falling
Near Christ’s icon, drop by drop.
In my room in every corner
Spiders have their cobwebs spun,
And among the piled books hiding
Furtively the mice now run.
In this peace mine eye distracted
Upward to the ceiling looks,
And I listen as they slowly
Gnaw the covers of my books.
Oft I thought, the lyre forsaking,
To depart and change my mood,
And to leave off writing verses
In this wasting solitude.
But then mice with tripping noises,
Chirping chickets bring and nurse
My old thoughts, my melancholy,
And this soon becomes a verse.
Sometimes while the lamp is burning
Late, I’m dreaming without sleep,
When I hear the door-latch clicking,
Suddenly my heart will leap.
It is She. The house so empty,
Now at once is full of light,
In my life’s black frame appearing
She, an icon shining bright.
And I cannot now but wonder
Why old Time will never rest,
While I’m with my love here whisp’ring
Hand in hand and breast to breast.