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Caught who Court Death

Without the blessing of the Gods
with Death you wed.
Yet suicide remains at odds
with those who fear to greet the sods,
who Heaven's gates slam on the dead.

The dead anticipated not,
wait, arms outspread.
Fell leaves their souls which, half-forgot,
skirl, skittles in windy melting pot.

Paradise keeps tabs on age.
Narcissus, dead,
must wait in turn Who turns the page.
No joys, except that in his rage
he'll [s]wallow, outrage his own cage.

If of his face he took much heed,
unless he fed
in fount of Youth, to drown, what need?
On half-life echo, fippled reed,
why haste with such ill gotten speed,
last words repeating? Thus I plead,
Echo swift sped
tell me, beneath the tumbleweed,
art dove or parrot pedigreed?

You, ever lazy, somehow dare
his words to shred, -
Narcissus love, his fretful prayer,
to offer up he did not care.

Death valley sees him stray, despair,
Narcissus dead.
Echo, alive, plays on the air.
The self-same song unites them there,
they would have made a happy pair!

poem by Raymond Radiguet, translated by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
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