You said: “I’ll find a new land, find another sea—

You said: “I will go hence to another land,

A new city’ll turn up, a better one than this.

I will betake me to another sea.

Every effort I make is condemned, turns out amiss,

A better place than this may well be found.

While my heart, like a corpse, lies buried deep,

All my endeavours are foredoomed to fail,

And my mind—how long will my mind stay sunk in stagnant sleep?

and as though dead my heart is sepulchred.

Here, wherever I look, wherever I turn my gaze

How long shall this corrosion sap my brain?

I see the blackened wreck of all my days,

On every side — whichever way I look —

So many years spent, ruined, lost by me.”

dark ruins of my life confront me here

where I have spent and wrecked so many years.”

There are no new places you’ll find, you’ll catch no other tide.

This city will follow you. The streets you tread

You shall not find new places; other seas

Will be the same, it’s in these same houses your head

you shall not find. The place shall follow you.

Will turn grey, in the same neighborhoods that you’ll age.

And you shall walk the same familiar streets,

Always you’ll end up in this city. Don’t hope to turn the page

and you shall age in the same neighbourhood,

To an Elsewhere for which there’s no ship for you, no road shows clear.

and whiten in these same houses. Ever this place

Just as you destroyed your life back here

shall you arrive at. There is neither ship,

In this tiny retreat, so you ruined it world-wide.

nor road, for you, to bring you otherwhere.

As here, in this small nook, you wrecked your life,

even so you spoilt it over all the earth.