my memory of love

One of my all-time favourites, for this 100th blip (on this blipfoto journal anyhow!) ... and probably Francisco de Quevodo's most famous poem, which deals beautifully with the endurance of love after death.

It's taken from the pictured 2005 collection ... and - for me - is quite simply a truly wonderful poem:


Love Constant Beyond Death

The final shadow that will close my eyes
will in its darkness take me from white day
and instantly untie the soul from lies
and flattery of death, and find its way

and yet my soul won’t leave its memory
of love there on the shore where it has burned:
my flame can swim cold water and has learned
to lose respect for laws’ severity.

My soul, whom a God made his prison of,
my veins, which a liquid humour fed to fire,
my marrows, which have gloriously flamed,
will leave their body, never their desire;
they will be ash but ash in feeling framed;
they will be dust but will be dust in love.

---

Francisco Gómez de Quevedo (1580 - 1645)

---