I closed my window, lit my lamp, reclined
My temple on my hand, and sadly thought:
"Now let me read, and dream, and rest my mind ...
But, O my God, my heart is so distraught!
Yet, let me read." It was a traveller's book.
O sailing on broad rivers, on whose shore
Are baobabs and mangroves, while the song
Of curious birds wafts with the ship along,
Together with the tiger's grating roar....
A sudden gust of wind the window shook,
Followed afar off by continued whining.
I throw the window open wide, to look
Into the night, and see, with white teeth shining
In mocking grin, Death pass upon a steed
With yellow teeth, making its wet flanks bleed
With spurs of bone, and in the wind its mane
Tossing, together with his winding-sheet;
See Death, while all the trees moan out in pain,
Race under clouds lit by a livid sheet,
And brandishing above him his bright scythe!
Afar, Italian poplars curve their slim
And parallel trunks beneath the wind of him;
Dishevelled willows in the shadow writhe,
And the earth, looking at the monster, pants....
Now he is swallowed by the raucous squall.
Long I stand gazing at the rise and fall
Of foliage broken by a rending sob,
When suddenly the wind, with hollow throb,--
Lugubrious present from the Reaper!--heaves
Into the room a flight of withered leaves.