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Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)



TO SEE HIM AGAIN

And shall it never be again, never? Not on nights filled
with trembling of stars, or by the pure light
of virginal dawns, or on afternoons of immolation?

Never, at the edge of any pale pathway
that borders the field, or beside any
tremulous fountain white under the moon?

Never, beneath the entangled tresses of the forest
where, calling out to him, night descended on me?
Nor in the cavern that returns my echoing outcry?

Oh, no! Just to see him again, no matter where--
in little patches of sky or in the seething vortex,
beneath placid moons or in a livid horror!

And, together with him, to be all springtimes
and all winters, entwined in one anguished knot
around his blood-stained neck!

(translated by Doris Dana)

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BALLAD

He passed by with another;
I saw him pass by.
The wind ever sweet
and the path full of peace.
And these eyes of mine, wretched,
saw him pass by!

He goes loving another
over the earth in bloom.
The hawthorn is flowering
and a song wafts by.
He goes loving another
over the earth in bloom!

He kissed the other
by the shores of the sea.
The orange-blossom moon
skimmed over the waves.
And my heart's blood did not taint
the expanse of the sea!

He will go with another
through eternity.
Sweet skies will shine.
(God wills to keep silent.)
And he will go with another
through eternity!

(translated by Doris Dana)
 

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Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)



TONIGHT I CAN WRITE

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, `The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night, whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

(translated by W. S. Merwin)

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POETRY

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
 

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