What have I gathered the years did not take from me?
( Swallows, hear, as you fly from the cold! )
Whom have I bound to me never to break from me?
( Whom, O wind of the wold? )
Whom, O wind! O hunter of spirits!
( Pierce his spirit whose spear is in mine! )
Then let Oblivion loose this ache from me, Proserpine!
Lyre and the laurel the Muses gave to me,
( Why comes summer when winter is nigh! )
Spent am I now and pain-voices rave to me.
( O sea and its cry! )
O the sea that has suffered all sorrow!
( Sea of the Delphian tongue ever shrill! )
Nought from the wreck of love can now save to me
Any thrill!
Life that we live passes pale or amorous.
( Tread, O vintagers, grapes in the press! )
Mine's but a prey to Erinnyes clamorous.
( O for wine that will bless! )
Wine that foams, but is free of all madness
( Free, O Cypris, of fury's breath! )
Free as I now shall be, O glamorous
Queen of Death!