Antonio Machado

“ The thud of a coffin in the earth is something
entirely serious.
Over the black box dusty clumps
of earth crumbled.
The air rose from the
deep grave with a pale breath.
–And you, now without a shadow, sleep and rest,
a long peace to your bones...
For good,
sleep a tranquil and true sleep.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content. ”

“ On a wide and clear afternoon when
the torrid summer wields its lance of boredom,
a thousand shadows in theory, upright upon the plain
imitated the ghost of a deep dream of mine.
The glory of the sunset was a purple mirror,
it was a window of flames, that in the old eternity
went throwing a deep dream upon the plain. ”

“ My eyes will not see you;
my heart awaits you!
The wind has carried with it
your name in the morning;
the echo of your steps
repeated by the mountain...
my eyes will not see you;
my heart awaits you! ”

“ There’s only the sound of your step on the street;
the echoes of the sunset slowly extinguish.
Oh, anuish! My heart weighs on me and hurts... Is it her?
It can’t be... She walks... In the blue, the star. ”

“ Cursing his destiny
like Glaucus, god of the seas,
he watches, his pupils cloudy
from weeping, the sea which owes him its white virgin Scylla.
He knows that a stronger God
of immortal substance is playing with death,
like a savage child. He thinks
that he must fall like a branch floating on the waters,
before losing himself, a drop
of sea, in the immense sea.
In dreams he heard the accent of a divine word;
in dreams he was shown the harsh diamantine law,
with neither hate nor love, and the cold
whisper of forgotten knowledge over the weary sands. ”

“ I don’t know where you go, nor where
your virginal beauty goes searching
for a wedding bed in the night. Nor do I know
what dreams close your eyelids,
nor who might have opened
your inhospitable bed. ”

“ I’ll distance myself. I don’t want
to call at your window... Spring
comes –its white garb
floats in the air of the dead square—
comes to light up the red
roses of your rose bush... I want to see her... ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 83 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”