Love, Pleasure, Joy… these are often ephemeral experiences at best; fleeting shades that entice us with what might be, what could be, if Dame Chance but smiled on us for a moment longer…

 

Regret, on the other hand, is one of the great Eternals. As unforgiving as an implacable deity in front of whose temple, our supplications, prayers and offerings are in vain; sterile, empty, futile…

 

As we look back over the labyrinth that was our life, there are all of the things that could have been, and those that were destined never to be at all…

 Larves

 

 

La Nuit de Juin montre ses orbes

Piqués dans le ciel de velours ;

Au loin palpitent les téorbes

Comme les ailes des amours ….

 

Décembre effeuille les ramures ;

Le Soir, les squelettes des bois,

Au lieu de nids aux douces voix,

Abritent de vagues lémures ….

 

Comme les lilas en été,

Mon âme avait longtemps porté

Des floraisons épanouies ….

 

Mais la bise a tout dévasté,

Le fantôme seul est resté

Des mes amours évanouies.

 

 

Georges Eekhoud, (circa 1895)

 

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Larvæ

 

 

June night displays to us its spheres

Which pierce the velvet skies;

The far theorobo’s throb one hears

As the wings upon which Love flies ….

 

December strips its branches bare

In skeletal woods at eventide,

In place of nests, sweet voices hide,

Sheltering half-seen lemurs there ….

 

As lilacs of a summer morn

My soul, so long a time has borne

Each swelling bud that bloomed ….

 

But North-Wind’s kiss, a desolation made.

Naught remains, save this phantom shade

Of all my loves now doomed.

 

 

Georges Eekhoud, (circa 1895).

(Traduction Anglaise: Sardonique Schadenfreude Rictus, 2006).

Image: Antoine-Joseph Wiertz, Suicidée, (circa 1860)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiertz