Days come and sigh and disappear

From Caesar's Vast Ghost by Lawrence Durrell.  One of his more bleak poems, though the bleakness is understandable in the context.  Durrell's marriages were fragile, plagued by divorce and death.  He married first Nancy Myers in 1935.  They separated in 1942 and divorced in 1947.  He lived with Eve Cohen from 1942 till 1947, when they married.  This marriage also ended in divorce some time after their separation in 1955.

Durrell married a third time in 1961, to Claude-Marie Vincendon, whom he met on Cyprus. She was a Jewish woman born in Alexandria.  Tragically, Claude-Marie died of cancer only a few years, in 1967, after their marriage. Durrell married for the fourth and last time in 1973, to Ghislaine de Boysson, a French woman. They divorced in 1979.

Route Saussaine 15 was written by Durrell soon after Claude-Marie Vincendon's passing.  It is one of the most explicit and passionate declarations of despair I have seen.

Despite the sentiment, Durrell continued to live in the Sommières home until his own death there on 7 November 1990.

Route Saussine 15

by Lawrence Durrell

Only of late have I come to see this house

As something poisoned when I paid for it;

Its beauty was specious and it hid pure grief.

Your absence, dearest, brings it no relief.

We have all died here; one by spurious one

Of indistinct diseases, lack of sun, or fun,

Or just our turn came up, now mine; so be it, none

Decline into oblivion without a guide,

The last of maladies, death, love can provide

The abandoned garden, dried up fountain oozes,

A stagnant fountain full of tiny frogs

Like miniature Muses; say to yourself

No hope of change with death so near.

Days come and sigh and disappear.

Despair camps everywhere and my old blind dog

Though lacking a prostate pisses everywhere.