My youth is but a tenebrous thunderstorm,
shot through now and then by brilliant sunbeams;
Thunderbolts and rain wreak havoc,
so that there remain very little ruddy fruits.

And by now I had already grazed the autumn of ideas,
and I had to use a shovel and rake
so as to to gather the flooded earth anew
where water digs holes as big as graves.

And who knows if the new flowers I dream of
will find a washing in the sun like the shore,
the mystic feed which gives them their vigor?

— Grief! Grief! Time eats life,
and the obscure Enemy who gnaws at our hearts,
finds faith and strength in the blood we lose!