BEFORE THE SILENCE

Before The Silence

'Lord, most merciful Judge,
grant your servant the bliss of paradise.'

Akathist for the Dead

I loved you once, Madame, you and the primroses,
you and the green silence of the meadow sables;
I remember your eyes the colour of Roman skies
and your azure hands lightly placed
on an openbook of Poe's verse, marvellous as the lightning!

I loved you like a child to whom summer refusesits
games of light, the balm of its fruits;
I was the dreaming page who dared one look,
only to find it returning futile as a reverie to my eyes
drenched with feeling, full of the song of the Muses!

translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy
November 2008