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A ROMANTIC FAREWELL TO THE PAST

                  I
Stopping off at a friendly seacoast,
     in estrangement I view the foreshore;
coming back to the chimney corner,
     feel a border of times thereon.
Utter silence will tell me nothing
     of the bygone nor of the future:
dumb the ashes of noisy feastings,
     dumb the paraffin Parthenon.

Just the boarding bell goes on ringing,
     as if asking, "Where are you, loner?"
as if saying, "O stay, be with me!"
     and I'd love to, but can no more.
From the haven departs a vessel
     bearing all of my hopes upon her;
I am watching her heavy motion
     while remaining alone ashore...

                  II
A terrestrial hurdy-gurdist
     will go by with an azure cloche on,
solo singing an ocean ditty,
     asking nobody for a tip...
Why, this ditty came out of someone
      who has never been on the ocean,
yet it sings of nothing but ocean,
      and they'll catch it aboard the ship.

And there shouldn't be any wonder:
      for the crew on that fancy cruiser
is made up of guardsmen of spirit
      of all times and of all offsprings --
many a radical truth's redeemer,
      curiosities' reproducer,
live onlooker of major happenings,
      interlocutor of the kings...

                  III
Should a single word of their summons
      reach my ear with the water's bellow,
I would render the land a farewell,
      greet the sunset and there be gone --
but the silent and inaccessible
      white phantasm on the sable billow
slews about in the gale's direction,
      calling no one to come along.

And whereas she may be departing
      for some misery-laden regions
out of fiery love of freedom
      to fight evil from fore and aft --
I, a courtier of the language,
      to adverbials my allegiance,
I am staying with my unsteady
      unreliable poetcraft...

                  IV
Taking leave of the sea forever,
      I am looking -- and rather listless,
as if really this couldn't either
      call my mind out of its confines --
how invisible territories
      lay out limits across the distance,
and how no one will ever venture
      to traverse the forbidden lines.

Just the vessel of all my hopings
      is determined to leave these borders,
heave her wings and with agitation
      fade in darkness -- away, away...
I am watching her heavy motion.
      In my charts, only voids and waters.
Of the bygone nor of the future
      is there anything I can say...