Never fancied, nay, I’d learn to die sometime;
Forever young, all wrapped up in my mantle,
Raised my wistful eyes with furtherance upon
Isolation’s orb.

Out of time then, aye, didst come subdue my course,
Excruciation thou, deliriously sweet...
Lest should count the drinks I chose to sip dead dry
Death’s unyielding lust.

Wretched breath afire I’m just pain like Nessus,
Or Hercules envenomed with his tunic;
As much as I wish can’t seem to quench this blaze
Seas all flowing in.

Over my own dream, I’m consumed in wailing,
On my private pyre, liquefied in flames...
Will I ever beam perchance reversed from it
The way Phoenix did?

Vanished be my eyne too stirrin’ from my course,
Come subdue my chest, oh mirthless apathy;
That I may die in peace, better let me be
Rendered unto me!



Adapted translation [after ‘Odã (‘n metru antic)’] by Axel H.Lenn