The Soul Of A Century/Belladonna
BELLADONNA
Why do you flaunt before my aching head
Love’s blood-stained rose, held boldly in your hand?
Why all this flame? I would ask for a tear instead
And be content with a lowly amaranth.
My head swoons weakly beneath love’s spent caress
I have emptied long ago their cup of lies;
And the feeble flame that lights my heart’s recess
This, you’ll put out with the tear drops from your eyes.
I do not blame myself, the time, the world,
Lord knows that now I would dread an excess of joy;
Across my lips, reproach shall not be hurled,
My soul refuses hope’s supporting buoy.
Why should we love, I ask you. Tell me why?
When we no longer feel love’s scorching breath.
Why look for peace, where haste and storms speed by,
Where happiness to man comes after death.
Why should we tempt old dreams again to life,
When strange to us appears their joyous dance.
Why should we live in Fall as when our Spring was rife,
Why should we weep when life laughs at its chance.
Our life is like an empty banquet hall
Where you feel only hunger and a thirst,
When passion’s flame grows weaker with each call,
Never again into a blaze to burst.
Where will you find a shield when life has fled,
When from feeble hands the sword drops to the ground?
When the flowers you would wreathe about your head,
Will grow in ridicule upon your mound?
Why flaunt you then before my aching head
Love’s blood-stained rose, held boldly in your hand?
Why all this flame? I would seek a tear instead
And be content with a lowly amaranth.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) between 1929 and 1977 (inclusive) without a copyright notice. The longest-living author of this work died in 1987, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 36 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
