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I lived with you -- I suffered and wept with you.
- Never did I regard any noble soul with indifference.
- Today I say farewell and go on to the shadows -- with ghosts --
- And, as though happiness were found here -- I go sadly.
- I left behind no inheritance
- Neither for my lute -- nor for my name --
- My name has passed as lightning,
- And will be as an empty sound through generations.
- But you who knew me will write in your reports
- That I spent my younger years for my country,
- And as long as the ship battled, I sat at mast,
- And when it sank, I went down with it...
- But some day -- as I (a noble soul?) contemplate the sad lot
- Of my poor country -- any noble soul will admit
- That my mind's cloak was not elect (that the cloak of my spirit . . . )
- But sanctified by the piety of my ancient progenitors.
- Let my friends gather at night
- And burn my poor heart in aloes,
- And give it back to the one who gave it to me --
- That's how the world pays off mothers as it carries away the ashes...
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Let my friends sit at the punch-bowl
And drink to my funeral -- and their own poverty...
If I will be a ghost -- then I'll appear to them,
If God frees me from torture -- I won't come...
But will take an oath -- may the living not lose hope
And carry the torch of enlightenment before the nation;
And if need be, they will go one by one to death,
As stones thrown by God at the rampart... (barracks)
As for me -- here I leave behind a small friendship
Of those who were able to take a liking to my proud heart;
Know that I did my cruel, hard duty toward God...
And here agreed to have -- an unlamented coffin...
Who else would consent, without worldly honors, To go, as indifferent as I toward the world?
To be the helmsman of a boat full of spirits
And fly away so silently -- as a spirit when it departs?
Nevertheless that fatal strength remains after me,
Which was nothing to me in life --only adorned my head --
But after death that unseen force will crush you
Until it transforms you bread-eaters into angels.
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