We present this work in honor of the 70th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Its gaze filled my abyss, its gaze melted
into my being, became so mine that I
am doubtful if this breath of agony
is life still or hallucinated death.

The archangel came, cast his sword
upon the double laurel flourishing
in the sealed garden….And that day brought back
the shadow and I returned to my nothingness.

I thought the world, witnessing man’s appal,
would crumble, overwhelmed beneath the ruins
of the entire firmament crashing down.

But I saw the earth at peace, at peace the heavens,
the fields serene, limpid the running stream,
blue the mountain and the wind at rest.

Translation by Samuel Beckett