We Are Never Too Old for Loving - Sidonie Grünwald-Zerkovitz

We are never too old for loving.
Happy is he, who does not deny it
And strides through fate as if it were nothing,
For, by love, will he always be guided.

Whether younger or older by many a year,
Would love consider life sordid?
What does it matter whether a hair here and there
May be shimmering grey on one's forehead?

Does love's desire, does love's sorrow
Ask whether troubles give any concern
Should they, in faces, plough a deep furrow
That the passage of time can discern?

To live without love is insane!
Love will not alter its state
And, as long as our life-force remain,
We shall be blissfully happy throughout.

Man will love as long as life is stirring,
In this respect, resembling the Linden,
Where shoots on the bark are, forever, resurging,
Although its years may number a thousand.

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Sidonie Grünwald-Zerkovitz (1852- 1907) born in modern day Czech Republic but lived mostly in Austria
Translated by David Paley
Source: Poems Without Frontiers