III

"From these strange and livid skies
A nguished as your destiny
What thoughts upon your empty soul
Descend, O.libertine?"

Consumed by never sated greed
For the dark uncertainties
I am no Ovid who will mourn
Lost Latin paradise.

O lacerated firmament
You mirror well my pride!
Funereal and vast, your clouds

Are hearses for my dreams,
Your lustre is the glow of fires
In hell where is my joy.

Translation by Hubert Witheford