A Sonnet to Death

A Sonnet to Death

To my mother´s death

By Amalia de Estrada

Taken from http://lascadenasdeobligado.blogspot.com/

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

You are pictured without flesh, wielding a scythe
With your ugliness hidden a black cloak behind 
You're looked at with great fear as well as fright
Just like the vermin are commonly looked at.

Your name is uttered with rancor and with rage
You are greeted with weeping and with wail!
Only the Christian soul, that of the saint
By your fiery appearance is not beguiled.

A messenger from God, who calls all men, 
So as to give them that life which never dies,
Beatific vision for those who love Him.

I am not going to sing you a Miserere
With its lugubrious tone, but a Hossana!
Unless we die,  we cannot go to Heaven.