Venice Poem by Peter Mamara

by M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

The life of great Venice has run its time-span.
One can't hear songs. One can't see lights in ballrooms
Trough old portals on marble stairways,
The moon glows, making the walls white.
The God Of The Sea, cries on channels.
He is forever in his best days.
Venice, a sweet bride into whom he could breathe life
Stroked with waves in her old walls.

The city is quiet, like a resting place.
Or like a priest left from days long gone.
At San Mark tolls the menacing midnight.
With deep voice in a tongue of a Sybil
It gently says in a rhythmic split second:
"The dead doesn't raise from the dead.
It is to no avail, my son and friend."

(1883, July 6)

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