I WOULD ENFOLD YOUR DEATH AND MINE

by: Pedro Requena Legarreta (1893-1918)

WOULD enfold your death and mine, as close

As our two lives have been together bound;

To your dire scar I would conjoin my wound,

And bind with yours my fate of joys and woes.

I would entwine our wills, until yours chose

To be my partisan forever found;

For I have gained your love, and sorrow-crowned,

You have shown courage to a world of foes.

Like the simoon I gather up your dust

And heap on high a little pile of trust

And hope and pain on pain, to call it ours;

Here at the gates of an eternal rest,

As all our dreams have known the self-same bowers,

So shall my soul and yours have but one breast.

--Translated by Thomas Walsh

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