7/22/2019 GLOSS by Mihai Eminescu

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GLOSS by Mihai Eminescu

"Days go past and days come still

All is old and all is new,

What is well and what is ill,

You imagine and construe;

Do not hope and do not fear,

Waves that leap like waves must fall;

Should they praise or should they jeer,

Look but coldly on it all".

Things you'll meet of many a kind,

Sights and sounds, and tales no end,

But to keep them all in mind

Who would bother to attend ?...

Very little does it matter,

If you can yourself fulfil,That with idle, empty chatter

"Days go past and days come still".

Little heed the lofty ranging

That cold logic does display

To explain the endless changing

Of this pageantry of joy,

And which out of death is growing

But to last an hour or two;

For the mind profoundly knowing

"All is old and all is new".

As before some troup of actors,You before the world remain;

7/22/2019 GLOSS by Mihai Eminescu

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Act they Gods, or malefactors,

'Tis but they dressed up again.

And their loving and their slaying,

Sit apart and watch, until

You will see behind their playing

"What is well and what is ill".

What has been and what to be

Are but of a page each part

Which the world do read is free.

Yet who knows them off by heart ?

All that was and is to come

Prospers in the present too,

But its narrow modicum

"You image and construe".

With the selfsame scales and gaugesThis great universe to weigh,

Man has been for thousand ages

Sometimes sad and sometimes gay;

Other masks, the same old story,

Players pass and reappear,

Broken promises of glory;

"Do not hope and do not fear".

Do not hope when greed is staring

O'er the bridge that luck has flung,

These are fools for not despairing,

On their brows though stars are hung;

Do not fear if one or otherDoes his comrades deep enthrall,

7/22/2019 GLOSS by Mihai Eminescu

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Do not let him call you brother

"Waves that leap like waves must fall".

Like the sirens' silver singing

Men spread nets to catch their prey,

Up and down the curtain swinging

Midst a whirlwind of display.

Leave them room without resistance,

Nor their commentaries cheer,

Hearing only from a distance,

"Should they praise or should they jeer".

If they touch you, do not tarry,

Should they curse you, hold your tongue,

All your counsel must miscarry

Knowing who you are among.

Let them muse and let them mingle,Let them pass both great and small;

Unattached and calm and single,

"Look but coldly on it all".

"Look but coldly on it all,

Should they praise or should they jeer;

Waves that leap like waves must fall,

Do not hope and do not fear.

You imagine and construe

What is well and what is ill;

All is old and all is new,

Days go past and days come still".