When the loud day for men who sow and reap Grows still, and on the silence of the town The unsubstantial veils of night and sleep, The meed of the day's labour, settle down, Then for me in the stillness of the night The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course, And in the idle darkness comes the bite Of all the burning serpents of remorse; Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities Are swarming in my over-burdened soul, And Memory before my wakeful eyes With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll. Then, as with loathing I peruse the years, I tremble, and I curse my natal day, Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears, But cannot wash the woeful script away.
--Translated by Maurice Baring
From "World Poetry," edited by Katharine Washburn, John S. Major and Clifton Fadiman (W.W. Norton: 1,338 pp.)
