Shades of Foreign Literature — Why Did I Laugh!

Why Did I Laugh!

— Why did I laugh this evening?
O my heart.. you and I dwell here in sorrow and solitude.
Tell me, my heart... what was it that made me laugh?
— Alas, O deadly pain!
O pitch-black, gloom-shrouded darkness!
Is it written upon me to moan forever?
And to question heaven and hell and the heart, in vain and to no purpose?
— Why did I laugh?
I know that life is short, its term bounded,
and that I must enjoy its pleasures and its delights;
yet death may come to me this very night,
and I shall vanish from the world's processions and its splendor.
— Verse, and fame, and beauty—
words, how mighty they are, and how sweet;
but death is mightier.