The pilgrim at San Yuste

It is night and the storm is howling on and on;

Spanish monks, open the door for me!

Let me rest here until the sound of bells awakens me

and sends me startled into the church to pray!

Prepare me in whatever way your house can manage:

a robe of the order and a sarcophagus!

Bestow upon me a small cell, initiate me;

more than half of this world was once mine.

The head that now submits to the shears

was once crowned with many a diadem.

The shoulders that are now beneath the cowl

once were adorned with imperial ermine.

Now I am like a corpse standing before Death,

fallen into ruin like the old empire.