How you slip from between my hands!
Oh how you slide away, years of my life!
What silent steps you take, cold death,
when your quiet tread makes all things equal!
Fiercely, you climb the weak earthen wall,
on which vigorous youth relies;
already my heart is at its last day,
waiting for the invisible flight of your wings.
Oh mortal condition! Oh hard fate!
That I cannot hope to live tomorrow
without paying for the purchase of my death!
Every instant of human life
is a new summons which warns me
how fragile it is, how miserable, and how vain.