Allow nothing to be in your life, that you can not walk out on
in thirty seconds flat, if you spot the heat around the corner.

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange eons even death may die.

I say to you againe, doe not call upp Any that you
can not put downe. Ask of the Lesser, lest the greater
shall not wish to Answer, and shall commande more than you.

That weapon will replace your tongue, you will learn to speak
through it and your poetry will now be written with blood.

You said: "I 'll go to another land, I 'll go to another sea.
Another city will be found better than this one.
Every effort of mine is a written condemnation
and my heart is -like a corpse- buried.
Untill when will my mind dwell in this decay.
Wherever I turn my eye, wherever I look
the black ruins of my life I see here,
where so many years I spent and wasted and ruined."

New places you will not find, you won't find other seas.
The city will follow you. In the same streets
you will wander. And in the same neighborhoods you 'll grow old;
and in these same houses you 'll grow grey.
Always in this city you 'll arrive. To elsewhere -don't hope-
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have wrecked your life here
in this small corner, in the entire world you 've ruined it.

When suddenly, at the midnight hour, is heard
an invisible troupe passing,
with exquisite music, with shouts-
your luck that finally gives in, your works
that failed, your life's plans
that all turned out illusions, don't uselessly mourn.
As if long prepared, as if courageous,
bid farewell, to Alexandria who is leaving.
Above all don't fool yourself, don't say it was
a dream, that your ears deceived you;
don't stoop to such vain hopes.
As if long prepared, as if courageous,
as it becomes you who are worthy of such a city,
approach steadily the window,
and listen with emotion, but not
with the cowards' entreaties and complaints,
as a final delectation to the sounds,
the exquisite instruments of the mystical troupe,
and bid farewell, to Alexandria which you are losing.