I Flee The City, Temples, And Each Place

I Flee The City, Temples, And Each Place

I flee the city, temples, and each place

where you took pleasure in your own lament,

where you used every forceful argument

to make me yield what I could not replace.

Games, masques, tournaments bore me and I sigh

and I dream no beauty that is not of you.

And so I try to kill my passion too,

forcing another image to my eye,

hoping to break away from tender thought.

Deep in the woods I found a lonely trail,

and after wandering in a maze I sought

to put you wholly out of mind. I fail.

Only outside my body can I live

or else in exile like a fugitive. 

Louise Labe