Bells

O sleepless night! I am in love with you!
O youthful night, the belle of the ball!
Thine veritable messengers, the stars, the comets
And the meteors
Arrived on time.
How majestic they are, these celestial bodies!
How magnificent is their canticle in the night!
They are the witnesses of golden ages and falls
Of the ancient empires.
Bloody tyrants, impostors and prophets they know by sight.

Tell me, o Night, wherefore we live and die?
Or do we just lie down and leave time?

February...

The sunset blazes ‘pon the vault,
This afternoon dies slowly forever,
The world is overfilled with weariness and fatigue,
Another episode of this life’s masquerade
Comes to an end…
The curtain falls…
And beauteous Agnes Adoma,
The prima donna of the opera house,
A-shining in the luster of her fame,
Leaves her beloved stage to the ovation
Of the spectators.
Her eyes! Her gorgeous green eyes!
They shine, like emeralds in the midday fire of heaven!
Her skin is white, like a snow of the...