Written by
Langston Hughes |
When a man starts out with nothing,
When a man starts out with his hands
Empty, but clean,
When a man starts to build a world,
He starts first with himself
And the faith that is in his heart-
The strength there,
The will there to build.
First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on the world,
On the great wooded world,
On the rich soil of the world,
On the rivers of the world.
The eyes see there materials for building,
See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles.
The mind seeks a way to overcome these obstacles.
The hand seeks tools to cut the wood,
To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters.
Then the hand seeks other hands to help,
A community of hands to help-
Thus the dream becomes not one man's dream alone,
But a community dream.
Not my dream alone, but our dream.
Not my world alone,
But your world and my world,
Belonging to all the hands who build.
A long time ago, but not too long ago,
Ships came from across the sea
Bringing the Pilgrims and prayer-makers,
Adventurers and booty seekers,
Free men and indentured servants,
Slave men and slave masters, all new-
To a new world, America!
With billowing sails the galleons came
Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.
In little bands together,
Heart reaching out to heart,
Hand reaching out to hand,
They began to build our land.
Some were free hands
Seeking a greater freedom,
Some were indentured hands
Hoping to find their freedom,
Some were slave hands
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
But the word was there always:
Freedom.
Down into the earth went the plow
In the free hands and the slave hands,
In indentured hands and adventurous hands,
Turning the rich soil went the plow in many hands
That planted and harvested the food that fed
And the cotton that clothed America.
Clang against the trees went the ax into many hands
That hewed and shaped the rooftops of America.
Splash into the rivers and the seas went the boat-hulls
That moved and transported America.
Crack went the whips that drove the horses
Across the plains of America.
Free hands and slave hands,
Indentured hands, adventurous hands,
White hands and black hands
Held the plow handles,
Ax handles, hammer handles,
Launched the boats and whipped the horses
That fed and housed and moved America.
Thus together through labor,
All these hands made America.
Labor! Out of labor came villages
And the towns that grew cities.
Labor! Out of labor came the rowboats
And the sailboats and the steamboats,
Came the wagons, and the coaches,
Covered wagons, stage coaches,
Out of labor came the factories,
Came the foundries, came the railroads.
Came the marts and markets, shops and stores,
Came the mighty products moulded, manufactured,
Sold in shops, piled in warehouses,
Shipped the wide world over:
Out of labor-white hands and black hands-
Came the dream, the strength, the will,
And the way to build America.
Now it is Me here, and You there.
Now it's Manhattan, Chicago,
Seattle, New Orleans,
Boston and El Paso-
Now it's the U.
S.
A.
A long time ago, but not too long ago, a man said:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL--
ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR
WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS--
AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY
AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
His name was Jefferson.
There were slaves then,
But in their hearts the slaves believed him, too,
And silently too for granted
That what he said was also meant for them.
It was a long time ago,
But not so long ago at that, Lincoln said:
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
WITHOUT THAT OTHER'S CONSENT.
There were slaves then, too,
But in their hearts the slaves knew
What he said must be meant for every human being-
Else it had no meaning for anyone.
Then a man said:
BETTER TO DIE FREE
THAN TO LIVE SLAVES
He was a colored man who had been a slave
But had run away to freedom.
And the slaves knew
What Frederick Douglass said was true.
With John Brown at Harper's Ferry, ******* died.
John Brown was hung.
Before the Civil War, days were dark,
And nobody knew for sure
When freedom would triumph
"Or if it would," thought some.
But others new it had to triumph.
In those dark days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That song meant just what it said: Hold On!
Freedom will come!
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
Out of war it came, bloody and terrible!
But it came!
Some there were, as always,
Who doubted that the war would end right,
That the slaves would be free,
Or that the union would stand,
But now we know how it all came out.
Out of the darkest days for people and a nation,
We know now how it came out.
There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.
There was a great wooded land,
And men united as a nation.
America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises-that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumblingly say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
"You are a man.
Together we are building our land.
"
America!
Land created in common,
Dream nourished in common,
Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on!
If the house is not yet finished,
Don't be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don't be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
BETTER DIE FREE,
THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
Who said those things? Americans!
Who owns those words? America!
Who is America? You, me!
We are America!
To the enemy who would conquer us from without,
We say, NO!
To the enemy who would divide
And conquer us from within,
We say, NO!
FREEDOM!
BROTHERHOOD!
DEMOCRACY!
To all the enemies of these great words:
We say, NO!
A long time ago,
An enslaved people heading toward freedom
Made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
The plow plowed a new furrow
Across the field of history.
Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped.
From that seed a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow.
That tree is for everybody,
For all America, for all the world.
May its branches spread and shelter grow
Until all races and all peoples know its shade.
KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW! HOLD ON!
|
Written by
Alan Seeger |
First, London, for its myriads; for its height,
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight.
.
.
.
Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays
Than, having beauty and your twenty years,
You have the means to conquer and the ways,
And coming where the crossroads separate
And down each vista glories and wonders wait,
Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair
You know not which to choose, and hesitate --
Oh, go to Paris.
.
.
.
In the midday gloom
Of some old quarter take a little room
That looks off over Paris and its towers
From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, --
So high that you can hear a mating dove
Croon down the chimney from the roof above,
See Notre Dame and know how sweet it is
To wake between Our Lady and our love.
And have a little balcony to bring
Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming,
That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands,
And swallows circle over in the Spring.
There of an evening you shall sit at ease
In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees,
There with your little darling in your arms,
Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise.
And looking out over the domes and towers
That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours,
While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them
Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers,
You cannot fail to think, as I have done,
Some of life's ends attained, so you be one
Who measures life's attainment by the hours
That Joy has rescued from oblivion.
II
Come out into the evening streets.
The green light lessens in the west.
The city laughs and liveliest her fervid pulse of pleasure beats.
The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the smoking eaves:
Come out under the lights and leaves
to the Reine Blanche on Saint Germain.
.
.
.
Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and restaurant.
Shrill voices cry "L'Intransigeant," and corners echo "Paris-Sport.
"
Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay,
The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat.
And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine
On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards.
.
.
.
But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to stroll along
And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel.
Here saunter types of every sort.
The shoddy jostle with the chic:
Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport;
Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads,
and courtezans like powdered moths,
And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths
bright-hued and stitched with golden threads;
And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes
In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties;
And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press,
And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you:
All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what
Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young.
"Comment ca va!" "Mon vieux!" "Mon cher!"
Friends greet and banter as they pass.
'Tis sweet to see among the mass comrades and lovers everywhere,
A law that's sane, a Love that's free, and men of every birth and blood
Allied in one great brotherhood of Art and Joy and Poverty.
.
.
.
The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer,
And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme.
And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls,
And lurid posters paint the walls with scenes of Love and crime and war.
But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with the stream of feet,
Where Bullier's further up the street is marvellous on Thursday nights.
Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere
So many happy heads and fair assembled in one time and place.
Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls,
Smokers, with covered heads, and girls dressed in the costume of the street.
From tables packed around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there
Spin serpentines into the air far out over the reeking hall,
That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue
The crowds that rag to "Hitchy-koo" and boston to the "Barcarole".
.
.
.
Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her debut in romance,
And join her sisters in the dance and see the life that they have seen.
Her hair, a tight hat just allows to brush beneath the narrow brim,
Docked, in the model's present whim, `frise' and banged above the brows.
Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn betrays,
In pretty and provoking ways her adolescent loveliness,
As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them
In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal.
Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete,
Along the maze of whirling feet the grave-eyed little wanton goes,
And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks and nubile waist,
She passes, charmingly unchaste, illumining ignoble eyes.
.
.
.
But now the blood from every heart leaps madder through abounding veins
As first the fascinating strains of "El Irresistible" start.
Caught in the spell of pulsing sound, impatient elbows lift and yield
The scented softnesses they shield to arms that catch and close them round,
Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms beneath
To all the bliss the measures breathe and all the madness they suggest.
Crowds congregate and make a ring.
Four deep they stand and strain to see
The tango in its ecstasy of glowing lives that clasp and cling.
Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, they seem
To float upon the perfumed stream of some voluptuous Paradise,
Or, rapt in some Arabian Night, to rock there, cradled and subdued,
In a luxurious lassitude of rhythm and sensual delight.
And only when the measures cease and terminate the flowing dance
They waken from their magic trance and join the cries that clamor "Bis!" .
.
.
Midnight adjourns the festival.
The couples climb the crowded stair,
And out into the warm night air go singing fragments of the ball.
Close-folded in desire they pass, or stop to drink and talk awhile
In the cafes along the mile from Bullier's back to Montparnasse:
The "Closerie" or "La Rotonde", where smoking, under lamplit trees,
Sit Art's enamored devotees, chatting across their `brune' and `blonde'.
.
.
.
Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris -- not as many do,
Seeing but the folly of the few, the froth, the tinsel, and the show --
But taking some white proffered hand that from Earth's barren every day
Can lead you by the shortest way into Love's florid fairyland.
And that divine enchanted life that lurks under Life's common guise --
That city of romance that lies within the City's toil and strife --
Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key,
And one's name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands.
And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory,
Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed:
When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood,
And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice,
At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled,
The celebrant in cloth of gold with Spring and Youth on either hand.
III
Choral Song
Have ye gazed on its grandeur
Or stood where it stands
With opal and amber
Adorning the lands,
And orcharded domes
Of the hue of all flowers?
Sweet melody roams
Through its blossoming bowers,
Sweet bells usher in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour.
A city resplendent,
Fulfilled of good things,
On its ramparts are pendent
The bucklers of kings.
Broad banners unfurled
Are afloat in its air.
The lords of the world
Look for harborage there.
None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair.
'Tis the city of Lovers,
There many paths meet.
Blessed he above others,
With faltering feet,
Who past its proud spires
Intends not nor hears
The noise of its lyres
Grow faint in his ears!
Men reach it through portals of triumph, but leave through a postern of tears.
It was thither, ambitious,
We came for Youth's right,
When our lips yearned for kisses
As moths for the light,
When our souls cried for Love
As for life-giving rain
Wan leaves of the grove,
Withered grass of the plain,
And our flesh ached for Love-flesh beside it with bitter, intolerable pain.
Under arbor and trellis,
Full of flutes, full of flowers,
What mad fortunes befell us,
What glad orgies were ours!
In the days of our youth,
In our festal attire,
When the sweet flesh was smooth,
When the swift blood was fire,
And all Earth paid in orange and purple to pavilion the bed of Desire!
|
Written by
Delmira Agustini |
Spanish –Eros: acaso no sentiste nuncaPiedad de las estatuas?Se dirían crisálidas de piedraDe yo no sé qué formidable razaEn una eterna espera inenarrable.
Los cráteres dormidos de sus bocasDan la ceniza negra del Silencio,Mana de las columnas de sus hombrosLa mortaja copiosa de la CalmaY fluye de sus órbitas la noche;Victimas del Futuro o del Misterio,En capullos terribles y magníficosEsperan a la Vida o a la Muerte.
Eros: acaso no sentiste nuncaPiedad de las estatuas?– Piedad para las vidasQue no doran a fuego tus bonanzasNi riegan o desgajan tus tormentas;Piedad para los cuerpos revestidosDel armiño solemne de la Calma,Y las frentes en luz que sobrellevanGrandes lirios marmóreos de pureza,Pesados y glaciales como témpanos;Piedad para las manos enguantadasDe hielo, que no arrancanLos frutos deleitosos de la CarneNi las flores fantásticas del alma;Piedad para los ojos que aleteanEspirituales párpados:Escamas de misterio,Negros telones de visiones rosas…Nunca ven nada por mirar tan lejos! Piedad para las pulcras cabelleras–Misticas aureolas–Peinadas como lagosQue nunca airea el abanico *****,***** y enorme de la tempestad;Piedad para los ínclitos espiritusTallados en diamante,Altos, claros, extáticosPararrayos de cúpulas morales;Piedad para los labios como engarcesCelestes donde fulgeInvisible la perla de la Hostia;–Labios que nunca fueron,Que no apresaron nuncaUn vampiro de fuegoCon más sed y más hambre que un abismo.
–Piedad para los sexos sacrosantosQue acoraza de unaHoja de viña astral la Castidad;Piedad para las plantas imantadasDe eternidad que arrastranPor el eterno azurLas sandalias quemantes de sus llagas;Piedad, piedad, piedadPara todas las vidas que defiendeDe tus maravillosas intemperiesEl mirador enhiesto del Orgullo;Apuntales tus soles o tus rayos!Eros: acaso no sentiste nuncaPiedad de las estatuas?… English –Eros: have you never feltPiety for the statues?These chrysalides of stone,Some formidable raceIn an eternal, unutterable hope.
The sleeping craters of their mouthsUtter the black ash of silence;A copious shroud of CalmFalls from the columns of their arms,And night flows from their eyesockets;Victims of Destiny or Mystery,In magnificent and terrible cocoons,They wait for Life or Death.
Eros: have you never perhaps feltPiety for the statues? Piety for the livesThat will not strew nor rend your battlesNor gild your fiery truces;Piety for the bodies clothedIn the solemn ermine of Calm,The luminous foreheads that endureTheir marble wreaths, grand and pure,Weighty and glacial as icebergs;Piety for the gloved hands of iceThat cannot uprootThe delicious fruits of the Flesh,The fantastic flowers of the soul;Piety for the eyes that flutterTheir spiritual eyelids:Mysterious fish scales,Dark curtains on rose visions…For looking so far, they never see! Piety for the tidy heads of hair–Mystical haloes–Gently combed like lakesWhich the storm’s black fan,Black and enormous, never thrashes;Piety for the spirits, illustrious,Carved of diamonds,High, clear, ecstaticLightning rods on pious domes;Piety for the lips like celestial settingsWhere the invisible pearls of the Host gleam;–Lips that never existed,Never seized anything,A fiery vampireWith more thirst and hunger than an abyss.
Piety for the sacrosanct sexesThat armor themselves with sheathsFrom the astral vineyards of Chastity;Piety for the magnetized footsolesWho eternally dragSandals burning with soresThrough the eternal azure;Piety, piety, pityFor all the lives defendedBy the lighthouse of PrideFrom your marvelous raw weathers:Aim your suns and rays at them!Eros: have you never perhaps feltPity for the statues?
|
Written by
Delmira Agustini |
SpanishVagos preludios.
En la noche espléndidaSu voz de perlas una fuente calla,Cuelgan las brisas sus celestes pifanosEn el follaje.
Las cabezas pardasDe los búhos acechan.
Las flores se abren más, como asombradas.
Los cisnes de marfil tienden los cuellosEn las lagunas pálidas.
Selene mira del azul.
Las frondasTiemblan… y todo! hasta el silencio, calla…Es que ella pasa con su boca tristeY el gran misterio de sus ojos de ámbar,A través de la noche, hacia el olvido,Como una estrella fugitiva y blanca.
Como una destronada reina exóticaDe bellos gestos y palabras raras.
Horizontes violados sus ojerasDentro sus ojos–dos estrellas de ámbar–Se abren cansados y húmedos y tristesComo llagas de luz que quejaran.
Es un dolor que vive y que no espera,Es una aurora gris que se levantaDel gran lecho de sombras de la noche,Cansada ya, sin esplendor, sin ansiasY sus canciones son como hadas tristesAlhajadas de lágrimas… EnglishMurmuring preludes.
On this resplendent nightHer pearled voice quiets a fountain.
The breezes hang their celestial fifesIn the foliage.
The gray headsOf the owls keep watch.
Flowers open themselves, as if surprised.
Ivory swans extend their necksIn the pallid lakes.
Selene watches from the blue.
FrondsTremble…and everything! Even the silence, quiets.
She wanders with her sad mouthAnd the grand mystery of amber eyes,Across the night, toward forgetfulnessLike a star, fugitive and white.
Like a dethroned exotic queenWith comely gestures and rare utterings.
Her undereyes are violated horizonsAnd her irises–two stars of amber–Open wet and weary and sadLike ulcers of light that weep.
She is a grief which thrives and does not hope,She is a gray aurora risingFrom the shadowy bed of night,Exhausted, without splendor, without anxiousness.
And her songs are like dolorous fairiesJeweled in teardrops… The strings of lyres Are the souls' fibers.
–The blood of bitter vineyards, noble vineyards,In goblets of regal beauty, risesTo her marble hands, to lips carvedLike the blazon of a great lineage.
Strange Princes of Fantasy! TheyHave seen her languid head, once erect,And heard her laugh, for her eyesTremble with the flower of aristocracies!And her soul clean as fire, like a star,Burns in those pupils of amber.
But with a mere glance, scarcely an intimacy,Perhaps the echo of a profane voice,This white and pristine soul shrinksLike a luminous flower, folding herself up!
|
Written by
Delmira Agustini |
Spanish Su idilio fue una larga sonrisa a cuatro labios…En el regazo cálido de rubia primaveraAmáronse talmente que entre sus dedos sabiosPalpitó la divina forma de la Quimera.
En los palacios fúlgidos de las tardes en calmaHablábanse un lenguaje sentido como un lloro,Y se besaban hondo hasta morderse el alma!…Las horas deshojáronse como flores de oro, Y el Destino interpuso sus dos manos heladas…Ah! los cuerpos cedieron, mas las almas trenzadasSon el más intrincado nudo que nunca fue…En lucha con sus locos enredos sobrehumanosLas Furias de la vida se rompieron las manosY fatigó sus dedos supremos Ananké… English Their idyll was a smile of four lips…In the warm lap of blond springThey loved such that between their wise fingersthe divine form of Chimera trembled.
In the glimmering palaces of quiet afternoonsThey spoke in a language heartfelt as weeping,And they kissed each other deeply, biting the soul!The hours fluttered away like petals of gold, Then Fate interposed its two icy hands…Ah! the bodies yielded, but tangled soulsAre the most intricate knot that never unfolds…In strife with its mad superhuman entanglements,Life’s Furies rent their coupled handsAnd wearied your powerful fingers, Ananké… Ananké: Goddess (Greek) of Unalterable Necessity
|
Written by
Pablo Neruda |
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: 'La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos.
'
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo.
Sentir que la he perdido.
Oir la noche inmensa, más inmnesa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guadarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo.
A lo lejos alguien canta.
A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro.
Será de otro.
Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro.
Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
|
Written by
Robert Hayden |
O masks and metamorphoses of Ahab, Native Son
I
The icy evil that struck his father down
and ravished his mother into madness
trapped him in violence of a punished self
struggling to break free.
As Home Boy, as Dee-troit Red,
he fled his name, became the quarry of
his own obsessed pursuit.
He conked his hair and Lindy-hopped,
zoot-suited jiver, swinging those chicks
in the hot rose and reefer glow.
His injured childhood bullied him.
He skirmished in the Upas trees
and cannibal flowers of the American Dream--
but could not hurt the enemy
powered against him there.
|
Written by
Delmira Agustini |
SpanishLa luna es pálida y triste, la luna es exangüe y yerta.
La media luna figúraseme un suave perfil de muerta…Yo que prefiero a la insigne palidez encarecidaDe todas las perlas árabes, la rosa recién abierta,En un rincón del terruño con el color de la vida,Adoro esa luna pálida, adoro esa faz de muerta!Y en el altar de las noches, como una flor encendidaY ebria de extraños perfumes, mi alma la inciensa rendida.
Yo sé de labios marchitos en la blasfemia y el vino,Que besan tras de la orgia sus huellas en el camino;Locos que mueren besando su imagen en lagos yertos…Porque ella es luz de inocencia, porque a esa luz misteriosaAlumbran las cosas blancas, se ponen blancas las cosas,Y hasta las almas más negras toman clarores inciertos! EnglishThe moon is pallid and sad, the moon is bloodless and cold.
I imagine the half-moon as a profile of the dead…And beyond the reknowned and praised pallorOf Arab pearls, I prefer the rose in recent bud.
In a corner of this land with the colors of earth,I adore this pale moon, I adore this death mask!And at the altar of the night, like a flower inflamed,Inebriated by strange perfumes, my soul resigns.
I know of lips withered with blasphemy and wine;After an orgy they kiss her trace in the lane.
Insane ones who die kissing her image in lakes…Because she is light of innocence, because white thingsIlluminate her mysterious light, things taking on white,And even the blackest souls become uncertainly bright.
|
Written by
Edward Dorn |
The Candidate, answering a question
about El Salvador, generalized
by saying he thought
we should support human rights
everywhere they were being abrogated--
South Korea, South Africa
or South Yemen.
He didn't have
the moral perspicuity
to mention South Dakota.
Perhaps it's too far north.
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Written by
Delmira Agustini |
Spanish Yo te diré los sueños de mi vidaEn lo más hondo de la noche azul…Mi alma desnuda temblará en tus manos,Sobre tus hombros pesará mi cruz.
Las cumbres de la vida son tan solas,Tan solas y tan frías! Y encerréMis ansias en mí misma, y toda enteraComo una torre de marfil me alcé.
Hoy abriré a tu alma el gran misterio;Tu alma es capaz de penetrar en mí.
En el silencio hay vértigos de abismo:Yo vacilaba, me sostengo en ti.
Muero de ensueños; beberé en tus fuentesPuras y frescas la verdad, yo séQue está en el fondo magno de tu pechoEl manantial que vencerá mi sed.
Y sé que en nuestras vidas se produjoEl milagro inefable del reflejo…En el silencio de la noche mi almaLlega a la tuya como a un gran espejo.
Imagina el amor que habré soñadoEn la tumba glacial de mi silencio!Más grande que la vida, más que el sueño,Bajo el azur sin fin se sintió preso.
Imagina mi amor, amor que quiereVida imposible, vida sobrehumana,Tú que sabes si pesan, si consumenAlma y sueños de Olimpo en carne humana.
Y cuando frente al alma que sentiaPoco el azur para bañar sus alas,Como un gran horizonte aurisoladoO una playa de luz se abrió tu alma:Imagina! Estrecha vivo, radianteEl Imposible! La ilusión vivida!Bendije a Dios, al sol, la flor, el aire,La vida toda porque tú eras vida!Si con angustia yo compré esta dicha,Bendito el llanto que manchó mis ojos!¡Todas las llagas del pasado ríenAl sol naciente por sus labios rojos!¡Ah! tú sabrás mi amor, mas vamos lejosA través de la noche florecida;Acá lo humano asusta, acá se oye,Se ve, se siente sin cesar la vida.
Vamos más lejos en la noche, vamosDonde ni un eco repercuta en mí,Como una flor nocturna allá en la sombraY abriré dulcemente para ti.
EnglishI will tell you the dreams of my lifeOn this deepest of blue nights.
In your hands my soul will tremble,On your shoulders my cross will rest.
The summits of life are lonely,So lonely and so cold! I lockedMy yearnings inside, and all resideIn the ivory tower I raised.
Today I will reveal a great mystery;Your soul has the power to penetrate me.
In silence are vertigos of the abyss:I hesitate, I am sustained in you.
I die of dreams; I will drink truth,Pure and cool, from your springs.
I know in the well of your breastIs a fountain that vanquishes my thirst.
And I know that in our lives, thisIs the inexpressible miracle of reflection…In the silence, my soul arrives at yoursAs to a magnificent mirror.
Imagine the love I dreamedIn the glacial tomb of silence!Larger than life, larger than dream,A love imprisoned beneath an azure without end.
Imagine my love, love which desiresImpossible life, superhuman life,You who know how it burdens and consumes,Dreams of Olympus bound by human flesh.
And when met with a soul which foundA bit of azure to bathe its wings,Like a great, golden sun, or a shoreMade of light, your soul opened:Imagine! To embrace the Impossible!Radiant! The lived illusion!Blessed be God, the sun, the flower, the air,And all of life, because you are life!If I bought this happiness with my anguish,Bless the weeping that stains my eyes!All the ulcers of the past laughAt the sun rising from red lips!Ah you will know, My Love,We will travel far across the flowery night;There what is human frightens, there you can hear it,See it, feel it, life without end.
We go further into night, we goWhere in me not an echo reverberates,Like a nocturnal flower in the shade,I will open sweetly for you.
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