Chapter XXVI

When you have closed my eyes to the light, kiss
them with a long kiss, for they will have given
you in the last look of their last fervour the
utmost passionate love.

Beneath the still radiance of the funeral torch,
bend down towards the farewell in them your sad
and beautiful face, so that the only image they
will keep in the tomb may be imprinted on them
and may endure.

And let me feel, before the coffin is nailed up,
our hands meet once again on the pure, white bed,
and your cheek rest one last time against my
forehead on the pale cushions.

And let me afterwards go far away with my heart,
which will preserve so fiery a love for you that
the other dead will feel its glow even through
the compact, dead earth!