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Poems, translated and original cover

Poems, translated and original

Chapter 49: LINES.
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About This Book

A compact volume of translated and original lyric poems paired with a short tragic drama. The poems range from elegiac meditations on death, memory, and the fate of poets to vivid nature pieces about lakes, seas, and changing skies; they also include mythic and historical reflections, paraphrases of sacred texts, and shorter lyrical forms such as sonnets and songs. Recurrent concerns are remembrance versus oblivion, the consolations of landscape, poetic vocation, and the ceremonial practices surrounding burial, while the concluding tragedy adapts a Venetian incident into dramatic scenes.

LINES.

I live the thrall of visions! in each dream
That comes my soul in fancy’s hues to steep,
The illusion bright reality I deem,
Smile in its joys—in its mock sorrows weep.
When comes the waking hour of thought, to give
My spirit back to reason, and dispel
The phantoms frail its folly could believe?
Ah! not in poesy alone doth dwell
That charm fantastic! but whate’er may seem
Truth in this being vain—or hope or rest,
Is falsehood all—life is a fevered dream!
A pageant wild, where none are truly blest.