The Philosopher Coffee-Seller

 

The men of this world are just the same

as the coffee beans inside the grinder:

one goes first, one after, another next,

yet every one of them goes to a single fate.

 

Often they change place, and often

the big bean drives out the little one,

and they all crowd together at the mouth

of the iron that grinds them into powder.

 

And so men live their lives in this world,

stirred about by the hand of fate,

which turns them all round and round;

 

and as each of them moves, slowly or fast,

never understanding it, they sink to the bottom

to fall into the throat of death.

 

Giuseppe Gioachino Belli – from the Romanesco sonnet Er caffettiere filosofo