Sonnet XXXIV: Recognition of the world's vanity - Francisco de Aldana

At last, at last, with so much time spent dying,

and with so many turns of life and fate,

so many times to every folly flying

with hopes to grasp it all, always too late,

with so much here and there, coming and going

much like a useless pilgrim, worn and spent,

oh God!, so often the right path foregoing,

to serve my meanness my whole life content,

I find, at last, that to be dead and gone

to this world is the best that can transpire,

for oblivion and death it will accord,

and living in a corner having won

oneself, fixing in just that place desire

where God himself thus served is the reward.

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Francisco de Aldana (1537 - 1578) Italy

Translated by Alix Ingber

Source: Golden Age Spanish Poets