Futile Sighs (Orfeo's Lament)

Words of love I whisper
into the shifting breeze, hoping
that my pleas may reach her;
but—I know, she hears me not.
Then, of what use is my entreaty,
of what value are my futile sighs?

If they were to touch the statue
of the armless Venus de Milo,
her marble body would most surely mend
and come alive to hold me to her breast.

For my tears alone, the worker
in the quarry should not need
a hammer to break up boulders,
for my words would crumble stone.

Only she, the distant-one, now
among the blessed spirits,
joining them in roundelays,
she can no longer hear me—
.And so I speak of her
into the rising gale that whisks
my spoken thoughts, but
not my love away.