To the Fates

Grant just one summer, you powerful ones!

And one autumn for ripe songs,

so that my heart might be more willing,

satisfied with sweet playing, to die.

My soul, which in life, did not realize its divine right,

will not rest in Orcus;

but if once the sacred thing that

lies closest to my heart - my poetry - succeeds,

then I will welcome the silence of the world of shadows!

I will be content, even if my lyre

does not come with me; for once

I lived like the gods - and I require no more.