LADY DEATH Poem by León de Greiff

For dead friends

Lady Death who goes on taking
all the good that she meets by chance! . . .
Alone - in a corner - left standing

the rest of us, miserable lot of troopers!
Selfish, perverse and fatuous
with souls of cloth and heart of burlap . . .

manufacturers of fleeting verses;
poets of ruler and balance,
to all the sorrow, to each lover adverse . . .

those who whisper songs of pathetic romance;
tearful ones who strut their plumes;
well versed in parlor-talk and contredance;

songsters of "the parched summer day";
of "the freezing pole" or "the aging Winter" . . .
lyrists of exanimate and ridiculous souls!

Minstrels who pollute the eternal
garden, that blossoms madrigals
with somniferous and superficial smells . . .

Those who no wisp of truth impassions
those ultra-sensitive and banal bards
Solemn and lethal Grammarians . . .

Legerdemains of studied technique!
. . . Oh that perennial sadness for the things
that have no flavor, made of plastic!

. . . In a corner we are left, the tedious
people with no emotion, empty and vain . . .
Let loose the dismal and nocturnal

moths, and let the bells sing their lament . . . !
This loathing of which I am dying . . .
Where are the intimate souls, my sisters . . . ?

Lady Death goes on taking!


1919 (May)