Impossible

We’re able to live happily,
If they don’t clobber us with banns,
And join our hands eternally,
     With their priestly hands.

I can see your uncovered shoulder,
Touch it, contemplate its whiteness,
And even your eyes, the color
    Of dark olives, I could kiss.

I can, if I want, cunningly, look in a way—
Once you’re dressed—just to see,
Your chemisette from Brittany,
    Decorated with crochet.

I can feel you enflamed, on fire,
Next to me, your cheeks turning
pink to red, half-asleep, full of languor.
    On a summer evening.

I can, with valor unflustered,
Help you put on sumptuous parties,
Stir the honeyed pudding with ease,
    Help you make the custard.

I can give you everything, the whole lot,
Give my life, my warmth, give you cognac,
Hymns of love, gowns of velvet,
    Boots of cotton duck.

With my air of a king—not all bombast—
I’ll give you tickets, my turtle dove,
from the big lottery that just passed,
    The Spanish one, my love.

You see we can live as we please,
In rooms that are comfortable,
Eat the same ham and pastries,
    And laugh at the miserable.

Both of us, blessed by fate, we can,
When the sun turns ruby and scarlet,
Drink from the same porcelain,
    The same hot chocolate.

And, on fleshier nights, we can even,
in a playful way, sleep together
With our two heads reposed upon
    The very same bolster.

I can be, until death do us part, your friend,
Prodigiously so! But by any mandate,
To link my end to your end,
    I will never contemplate.

I can love you as Dante loved Beatrice,
Follow you always as light follows its ray,
But walk over the churchly precipice
    with you, no way!

— Cesário Verde

Translated by Martin Earl for