So if it is true that I must live without you, stranded
here in the land of good behavior, I begrudge my hair nothing,

He belongs to her.
He is either her mother or her only child.

Long ago cloisters had the sacred Truth
of Holy Scripture painted on their walls.
These pictures warmed the hearts of men of faith
and eased the chill inside their stringent cells.

I still recall the little whitewashed lodging where
we lived in peace, just off a major thoroughfare.

Have you felt—I have—a pain that you enjoyed?
Do they say about you, too: “How strange he is!”
—I was dying, and a special agony

Remember, my soul, the thing we saw
  that lovely summer day?
On a pile of stones where the path turned off,

The fervent lovers of the austere savants
Adore, in their dotage, each of the sweet
And powerful cats, pride of the house,

Once, indulgent lady—only once
  you lay your lustrous arm
on mine (against the darkness of my soul

Two warriors have engaged in combat: swords
Hash and clash together; blood is spilled.
Such passages of arms are the result

Gentle reader, being—as you are—
a cautious man of uncorrupted tastes,
lay aside this disobliging work,