I’m getting more at ease with Death by the day. In a broader sense, it’s progressively easier to not get worked up over the everchanging and unpredictable nature of the world.
Have no mother, have no dad, have no country, have no God, no cradle, no winding sheet, no lover, no kisses sweet.
Haven't eaten for three days, my head spins, the body sways... Twenty years! My might, my gale, twenty years are now for sale.
If there is no customer, sell it to Devil in hell. With a clean heart, I will steal, If need be, I'll even kill.
They'll catch me and hang me up, with soft earth cover me up, and death-bringing grass will start from my beautiful, clean heart.
Translation by Frank Veszely in Hungarian Poetry: One Thousand Years (2023) Altona, Manitoba: Friesen Press, pp. 156-157.
NOTE: This poem got Attila expelled from university and preemptively scuttled any possibility of a career in academia. (Hence, my affinity for it. Any poetry that extracts such a cost is probably excellent poetry.)
My spirit is too weak -- mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep That I have not the cloudy winds to keep Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. Such dim-conceived glories of the brain Bring round the heart an undescribable feud; So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old time--with a billowy main -- A sun--a shadow of a magnitude.
Half of my life is gone, and I have let The years slip from me and have not fulfilled The aspiration of my youth, to build Some tower of song with lofty parapet. Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret Of restless passions that would not be stilled, But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, Kept me from what I may accomplish yet; Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights, -- A city in the twilight dim and vast, With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights, -- And hear above me on the autumnal blast The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 