Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes by Cesare Pavese

Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes

Death will come and will have your eyes—

this death that accompanies us

from morning till evening, unsleeping,

deaf, like an old remorse

or an absurd vice. Your eyes

will be a useless word,

a suppressed cry, a silence.

That’s what you see each morning

when alone with yourself you lean

toward the mirror. O precious hope,

that day we too will know

that you are life and you are nothingness.

Death has a look for everyone.

Death will come and will have your eyes.

It will be like renouncing a vice,

like seeing a dead face reappear in the mirror,

like listening to a lip that’s shut.

We’ll go down into the maelstrom mute.

(Translated by Geoffrey Brock)