There shall come days, so they do still me tell,
When of the vespers gone, and those I dwell in now,
Naught shall survive but the echo’s knell
And the mist of a long quenched plaint, I trow.

Somewhat I yearn for such hopes and dreams,
And somewhat it pleaseth me to ken aright
That it may be so, as it verily seems,
Yet still it is loud, that which fades not from sight

For whilst I bow me upon the page,
Or from the page am by force withdrawn,
I taste yet the sharp and the bitter’s rage
Of the years that drave me to write thereon

Of this and but little else, if ye closely spy,
Now that hidden in the darkest verses I find
The countless citations and the covert tie
To that which fleeth not, but rather doth bind;

I have spent some hours abroad this day,
With breath half-broke by smoke and flames,
And all the vices that keep in dismay
Each malady known and of constant name;

And by the grasses of a field they forgot,
And in the sweltering August air that shent
My cheeks with cuts, I forgot thee not,
Nor the name by which my thought is bent.

These be but pages as a thousand writ,
That yet cleave fast, though ill-inclined,
To a past that mayhap is not past a whit,
For dread of a future with no past enshrined.

Marco Delrio