Joseph Brodsky - In Italy lyrics

I, too, once lived in a city where cornices used to court Clouds with statues, and where a local penseur, with his shrill Pervért! Pervért!” and the trembling goatee, was mopping Avenues; and an infinite quay was rendering life myopic. These days evening sun still blinds the tenements' domino. But those who have loved me more than themselves are no Longer alive. The bloodhounds, having lost their quarry, With vengeance devour the leftovers -- herein their very Strong resemblance to memory, to the fate of all things. The sun Sets. Faraway voices, exclamations like “Scum! Leave me a lone!” -- in a foreign tongue, but it stands to reason. And the world's best lagoon with its golden pigeon Coop gleams sharply enough to make the pupil run. At the point where one can't be loved any longer, one, Resentful of swimming against the current and too perceptive Of its strength, hides himself in perspective.