Translated by Pablo Alejos Flores

Hollow and nothing, the being's blow:
Mankind, bird and flower depart;
To the oblivion sea, love runs,
To the tomb, pleasure shortly goes.

Where are the lights from long ago?
All radiance its twilight has gained,
All liquor by bile is hidden,
Birth’s misfortune expiates it all.

Joy being a charming agony,
Who laughed without ever groaning?
It's a mad and vain zeal to feel!
Vain and mad I long for thinking!

What’s life? To dream without sleeping.
What’s death? To sleep without dreaming.

Read «Life and Death» in Spanish.