Quevedo: Psalm

Translated from the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo "Miré los muros de la patria mía..." I viewed my homeland’s walls and collonade mighty before, now mouldering away, worn by impending time whose slow decay the valor left in them could not evade. I went afield and saw the sun that made a drink of streams no more in ice’s sway, the cows that groaned of how the light of day was stolen from them by their mountain’s shade. Entering my house I saw it wore the wares of ruin and disuse, my shepherd’s crook more bent and less emboldened. In its sheath I felt my sword surrender to the years and there was nowhere left for me to look that was not a reminder now of death.