Best Famous Eros Poems

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?

When there are so many we shall have to mourn,
when grief has been made so public, and exposed
to the critique of a whole epoch
the frailty of our conscience and anguish,
 of whom shall we speak? For every day they die
among us, those who were doing us some good,
who knew it was never enough but
hoped to improve a little by living.
 Such was this doctor: still at eighty he wished
to think of our life from whose unruliness
so many plausible young futures
with threats or flattery ask obedience,
 but his wish was denied him: he closed his eyes
upon that last picture, common to us all,
of problems like relatives gathered
puzzled and jealous about our dying.
 For about him till the very end were still
those he had studied, the fauna of the night,
and shades that still waited to enter
the bright circle of his recognition
 turned elsewhere with their disappointment as he
was taken away from his life interest
to go back to the earth in London,
an important Jew who died in exile.
 Only Hate was happy, hoping to augment
his practice now, and his dingy clientele
who think they can be cured by killing
and covering the garden with ashes.
 They are still alive, but in a world he changed
simply by looking back with no false regrets;
all he did was to remember
like the old and be honest like children.
 He wasn't clever at all: he merely told
the unhappy Present to recite the Past
like a poetry lesson till sooner
or later it faltered at the line where
 long ago the accusations had begun,
and suddenly knew by whom it had been judged,
how rich life had been and how silly,
and was life-forgiven and more humble,
 able to approach the Future as a friend
without a wardrobe of excuses, without
a set mask of rectitude or an
embarrassing over-familiar gesture.
 No wonder the ancient cultures of conceit
in his technique of unsettlement foresaw
the fall of princes, the collapse of
their lucrative patterns of frustration:
 if he succeeded, why, the Generalised Life
would become impossible, the monolith
of State be broken and prevented
the co-operation of avengers.
 Of course they called on God, but he went his way
down among the lost people like Dante, down
to the stinking fosse where the injured
lead the ugly life of the rejected,
 and showed us what evil is, not, as we thought,
deeds that must be punished, but our lack of faith,
our dishonest mood of denial,
the concupiscence of the oppressor.
 If some traces of the autocratic pose,
the paternal strictness he distrusted, still
clung to his utterance and features,
it was a protective coloration
 for one who'd lived among enemies so long:
if often he was wrong and, at times, absurd,
to us he is no more a person
now but a whole climate of opinion
 under whom we conduct our different lives:
Like weather he can only hinder or help,
the proud can still be proud but find it
a little harder, the tyrant tries to
 make do with him but doesn't care for him much:
he quietly surrounds all our habits of growth
and extends, till the tired in even
the remotest miserable duchy
 have felt the change in their bones and are cheered
till the child, unlucky in his little State,
some hearth where freedom is excluded,
a hive whose honey is fear and worry,
 feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape,
while, as they lie in the grass of our neglect,
so many long-forgotten objects
revealed by his undiscouraged shining
 are returned to us and made precious again;
games we had thought we must drop as we grew up,
little noises we dared not laugh at,
faces we made when no one was looking.
 But he wishes us more than this.
 To be free
is often to be lonely.
 He would unite
the unequal moieties fractured
by our own well-meaning sense of justice,
 would restore to the larger the wit and will
the smaller possesses but can only use
for arid disputes, would give back to
the son the mother's richness of feeling:
 but he would have us remember most of all
to be enthusiastic over the night,
not only for the sense of wonder
it alone has to offer, but also
 because it needs our love.
 With large sad eyes
its delectable creatures look up and beg
us dumbly to ask them to follow:
they are exiles who long for the future
 that lives in our power, they too would rejoice
if allowed to serve enlightenment like him,
even to bear our cry of 'Judas',
as he did and all must bear who serve it.
 One rational voice is dumb.
 Over his grave
the household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved:
sad is Eros, builder of cities,
and weeping anarchic Aphrodite.