I would like to die when the day is ending
on the open sea and looking at the sky;
where the agony of death may seem but sleep
and the soul may seem a bird which mounts in flight.
And in the final instants I would hear,
already with the sky and sea alone,
no other sobbing prayers or sobbing voices
than those of waves in their majestic fall.
To die when life is sadly hauling back
its golden nets from out the tide's deep green
and be like yonder sun that dies down slowly:
some very shining thing that's lost from sight.
To die, and young, before unfaithful time
destroys the delicate and gentle crown;
whilst life still tells us: I am yours
although we know so well it will betray us.
Manuel Gutierrez (1859 - 1895)
(Translation: Gordon Challis)
