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.