They Say I Am Finished! (A Woman's Song)

A Woman's Song

They say that I am finished,
and that in my heart no lamp
remains, and no oil remains!

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I pass by the roses — what do they care
whether I laughed for them or wept?
And the roses hold, in my eyes
and in my thoughts,
a morning by which I effaced, and was effaced!

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I am darkness and the remnants of a sunset
that pave my paths through the impossible
and let me slip away like fragrance, like carnelian,
like a song out of a distant age,
and plant me in hearts as beauty,
as illusion of far reach, and as error,
and as light of ancient nights, and oil.
I am the bleeding foot
that says to my heart: blaze up, O morning!
I am the tempest
that says to my soul: play on, O winds!

I am flames and wounds;
I have filled hearts with error,
with illusion of far reach, and with beauty.
I love — oh, how I love my beauty!
and in it I worship my error;
of old I guided by it, and was guided!

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I have thirsted. When, O my blood, O my youth,
will you say: I have drunk my fill?!
I thirsted for a tryst
on which I staked my tomorrow,
and which I fed morsels of my hand.
I thirsted for a heart wide and deep,
to pluck in flames along my road,
to store away in my veins,
and to leave between the living and the dead!
I have thirsted. When, O my blood, O my youth,
will you say: I have drunk my fill?!

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They say that I am finished,
yet mine is the earth — mine her splendor and her pride;

her palms wound me and her bosom sucks at me;
if her thorns disdain me, her flowers snatch me up.
They say that I am finished,
yet mine are the ages:
when I come into their thoughts, they grow drunk.
They say that I am finished,
and on every road
a thousand hearts applaud me,
and a shadow laughs, and a house!

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Tomorrow every mouth will murmur of me:
would that I had passed her way
and emptied into her lips
my youth and my art.
And would that I had sung
none but her... a thousand times, would that!

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I have drunk every heart...
I drank as though grown drunk with ecstasy,
and I said, and I said... be kneaded into shape, O my existence,
and be what I have desired!