Woke up this morning thinking of a poem I've always, always loved. I was so astonished that although it's quite long and I didn't think about it in years, I still know it by heart. Human mind is amazing!

I searched the english translation of the poem and, though it doesn't sound as good as the romanian version, I paste a few lines (I use bold font for my favorites):


MORTUA EST
by Mihai Eminescu


Two candles, tall sentry, beside an earth mound,
A dream with wings broken that trail to the ground,
Loud flung from the belfry calamitous chime...
'Tis thus that you passed o'er the bound'ries of time.

Gone by are the hours when the heavens entire
Flowed rivers of milk and grew flowers of fire,
When the thunderous clouds were but castles erect
Which the moon like a queen each in turn did inspect.


I see you a shadow bright silver transcending,
With wings high uplifted to heaven ascending,
I see you slow climbing through the sky's scaffold bars
Midst a tempest of light and a snowstorm of stars;


While the witches the sound of their spinning prolong,
Exalted in sunshine, swept up by a song,
O'er your breast like a saint you white arms crossed in prayer,
And gold on the water, and silver in the air.


I see your soul's parting, its flight I behold;
Then glaze at the clay that remains ... mute and cold,
At the winding-sheet clung to the coffin's rude sill,
At your smile sweet and candid, that seems alive still.


And i ask times unending my soul torn with doubt,
O why, pallid angel, your light has gone out,
For were you not blameless and wonderfully fair ?
Have you gone to rekindle a star in despair ?

[...]


To exist! O, what nonsense, what foolish conceit;
Our eyes but deceive us, our ears but cheat,
What this age discovers, the next will deny,
For better just nothing than naught a lie.


I see dreams in men's clothing that after dreams chase,
But that tumble in tombs ere the end of the race,
And i search in may soul how this horror to fly,
To laugh like a madman ? To curse ? Or to cry ?


O, what is the meaning ? What sense does agree ?
The end of such beauty, had that what to be ?
Sweet seraph of clay where still lingers life's smile,
Just in order to die did you live for a while ?

O, tell me the meaning. This angel or clod ?
I find on her forehead no witness of God.