To a Pessimist

To a Pessimist by José Asunción Silva, translated by Wikisource

There are too many shadows in your visions,
Life does have bits of calm;
Not everything in existence is a wound
From which blood gushes forth.
    
Fighting has a shadow; and dying
passions, fugitive tenderness,
everything loved that on passing is forgotten
is a source of distressing disappointments.
    
But, why doubt, if they yet offer,
in the remote, dark future,
calm depths and vivid affection
    
deep tenderness, the pure kiss
and a woman's hands, that lovers rock
the pink cradles of children?

This is a translation and has a separate copyright status from the original text. The license for the translation applies to this edition only.
Original:	This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Translation:	This work is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, which allows free use, distribution, and creation of derivatives, so long as the license is unchanged and clearly noted, and the original author is attributed.