The City

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

I will betake me to another sea.

A better place than this may well be found.

All my endeavours are foredoomed to fail,

and as though dead my heart is sepulchred.

How long shall this corrosion sap my brain?

On every side — whichever way I look —

dark ruins of my life confront me here

where I have spent and wrecked so many years.”

You shall not find new places; other seas

you shall not find. The place shall follow you.

And you shall walk the same familiar streets,

and you shall age in the same neighbourhood,

and whiten in these same houses. Ever this place

shall you arrive at. There is neither ship,

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.