No more is the muse invoked;

the lyre is out of fashion;

no poet cares to use it;
by other things are the dreamy
young inspired to passion.

Now if imagination
demands some poesies,
no Helicon is invoked;
one simply asks the garçon
for a cup of coffee please.

Instead of tender stanzas

that move the heart’s sympathy,
one now writes a poem
with a pen of steel,
a joke and an irony.

Muse that in the past

inspired me to sing of the throes
of love: go and repose.
What I need is a sword,
rivers of gold, and acrid prose.

I have a need to reason,

to meditate, to offer
combat, sometimes to weep;
for he who would love much
has also much to suffer.

Gone are the days of peace,

the days of love’s gay chorus,
when the flowers were enough
to alleviate the soul
of its sufferings and sorrows.

One by one from my side

go those I loved so much:
this one dead, that one married;
for fate seals with disaster
everything that I touch.