20th Century Spanish poetry

Sorrow, it is not true that I know you by Antonio Machado

/ zdunno03 / 7 Comments

Sorrow, it is not true that I know you;
you are the nostalgia for a good life,
and the aloneness of the soul in shadow,
the sailing ship without wreck and without guide.

Like an abandoned dog who cannot find
a smell or a track and roams
along the roads, with no road, like
the child who in a night of the fair

gets lost among the crowd,
and the air is dusty, and the candles
fluttering–astounded, his heart
weighed down by music and the pain;

that’s how I am, drunk, sad by nature,
a mad and lunar guitarist, a poet,
and an ordinary man lost in dreams,
searching constantly for God among the mists.

translated by Robert Bly

untitled poem by Antonio Machado

/ zdunno03 / 2 Comments

Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own road as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship’s wake on the sea.

translated by Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney

Last Night, As I Was Sleeping by Antonio Machado

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvellous error!–
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvellous error!–
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvellous error!–
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt–marvellous error!–
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

translated by Robert Bly