Donald Davie: Time Passing, Beloved

(Metaphor of Time)
no copyright infringement intended

Time passing, and the memories of love

Coming back to me, carissima, no more mockingly

Than ever before; time passing, unslackening,

Unhastening, steadily; and no more

Bitterly, beloved, the memories of love

Coming into the shore.

How will it end? Time passing and our passages of love

As ever, beloved, blind

As ever before; time binding, unbinding

About us; and yet to remember

Never less chastening, nor the flame of love

Less like an amber.

What will become of us? Time

Passing, beloved, and we in a sealed

Assurance unassailed

By memory. How can it end,

This siege of a shore that no misgivings have steeled,

No doubts defend?

(http://allpoetry.com/Time-Passing,-Beloved)

Se o tempo tudo apaga, apaga também das memórias o que de amargo o amor viveu, mas a incerteza sobre o futuro, essa é uma indeterminação que permanece, sempre.

(Vicio da Poesia)

[ff time clears everything, it also will erase the memories of that bitter love - while the incertitude about future remains, for ever] 

and that brings us to the Time Metaphor: past is in front of us, cleared and healed by the mechanisms of time - while future is still behind, unknown till it's too late.


(Donald Davie)