Since there is no escape, since at the end My body will be utterly destroyed, This hand I love as I have loved a friend, This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed;Since there is no escape even for me Who love life with a love too sharp to bear:
The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea And hours alone too still and sure for prayer --Since darkness waits for me, then all the more Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;In these few hours of light I lift my head;
Life is my lover -- I shall leave the dead If there is any way to baffle death.
