Adieu I Poem by Gaston Karel Mathilde Burssens

To myself
This is, so be it, the last note
that I shall,
will,
can
play
in the last life that I live,
on the last keys of my body.
An instrument hard as a safe
from which I have squandered the craziest pennies,
from which I have pulverised the most expensive spider webs.
The dust has stuck to my bones.
It will be buried with me.
The worms will not eat it,
the poison is only intended for me.
I can, I could know
that each beautiful song decorates itself with a conclusion,
as each conclusion decorates itself with a prayer after eating,
and that this end, now or never,
must be called beginning.

Translation:John Stevens Wade