Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben) (12 page)

 

 

I was contemplating the blankness of the page
during my reverie.

 

And then came the parade, lucid dreams, and shadows.
And I saw the women with their sculpted faces,
women like statues with faces of marble.
They were so sad, so sweet, so gentle and pallid!

 

And then there were visions of the strangest poems,
of the strangest poems filled with kisses and tears,
and stories that would leave the head of any man
covered with graying hair in one cruel instant.

 

What snow-colored helmets that destiny issues!
What premature wrinkles are chiseled in faces!
And how each of us hopes that all the slow camels
are carrying light loads when caravans journey.

 

And all the slow camels,
like some tiny figures in a panorama,
as if it were a desert made of ice,
make their way through the blankness of the page.

 

This one carries
a heavy load
of sorrow and anguish as old as time,
the anguish of nations, the sorrow of races;
the sorrow and anguish that any Christ suffers
who comes into the world as some tragic victim!

Otro lleva
en la espalda
el cofre de ensueños, de perlas y oro,
que conduce la reina de Saba.

 

Otro lleva
una caja
en que va, dolorosa difunta,
como un muerto lirio la pobre Esperanza.

 

Y camina sobre un dromedario
la Pálida,
la vestida de ropas obscuras,
la Reina invencible, la bella inviolada:
la Muerte.

 

Y el hombre,
a quien duras visiones asaltan,
el que encuentra en los astros del cielo
prodigios que abruman y signos que espantan,
mira al dromedario
de la caravana
como el mensajero que la luz conduce,
¡en el vago desierto que forma la página blanca!

[1896]

This one carries
upon its back
coffers of reveries filled with pearls and fine gold,
proceeded by the Queen of Sheba.

 

The next one carries
a coffin
that transports the disconsolate remains
of poor Hope, like a lily that has died.

 

And riding another dromedary,
the Pale Lady,
the one who is dressed in the darkest robes,
the invincible Queen, inviolate beauty,
regal Death.

 

And the man
who’s been assaulted by these harsh visions,
the one who finds in the stars of the sky
marvels that astonish and signs that produce fear,
he considers the camel
in the slow caravan
as a true messenger preceded by the light,
in the shifting desert sands that shape the blank page.

En invernales horas, mirad a Carolina.
Medio apelotonada, descansa en el sillón,
envuelta con su abrigo de marta cibelina
y no lejos del fuego que brilla en el salón.

 

El fino angora blanco junto a ella se reclina,
rozando con su hocico la falda de Alençón,
no lejos de las jarras de porcelana china
que medio oculta un biombo de seda del Japón.

 

Con sus sutiles filtros la invade un dulce sueño:
entro, sin hacer ruido; dejo mi abrigo gris;
voy a besar su rostro, rosado y halagüeño

 

como una rosa roja que fuera flor de lis.
Abre los ojos, mírame con su mirar risueño,
y en tanto cae la nieve del cielo de París.

[1889]

Here’s Carolina on a winter’s day,
languorous, slumped in a comfortable chair,
wrapped in a coat of fur like Cybele
next to the fireplace that shines over there.

 

The white Angora cat found the right place—
the snug Alençon skirt she wears inside—
not far from the Chinese porcelain vase
that her folding Japanese silk screens hide.

 

A sweet dream occupies her with its spell:
I come in, take off my gray coat, softly
kiss the alluring face I know so well

 

like a rose that might be a fleur-de-lis.
She stirs, looks at me with her sunny eyes,
and, meanwhile, snow falls from Parisian skies.

Ha pasado la siesta
y la hora del Poniente se avecina,
y hay ya frescor en esta
costa, que el sol del Trópico calcina.
Hay un suave alentar de aura marina,
y el Occidente finge una floresta
que una llama de púrpura ilumina.

 

Sobre la arena dejan los cangrejos
la ilegible escritura de sus huellas.
Conchas color de rosa y de reflejos
áureos, caracolillos y fragmentos de estrellas
de mar forman alfombra
sonante al paso en la armoniosa orilla.

 

Y cuando Venus brilla,
dulce, imperial amor de la divina tarde,
creo que en la onda suena
o son de lira, o canto de sirena.
Y en mi alma otro lucero como el de Venus arde.

[1907]

Now that the siesta’s done,
now that the twilight hour is drawing near
and the tropical sun
that charred this coast has almost disappeared,
there’s a gentle, cool zephyr breathing here
through the western sky’s trees of illusion
lit by purple flames in the atmosphere.

 

Scrawled across beaches, the crabs have written
the illegible message of their trails.
There are pink-colored shells and some golden
reflections. Pieces of starfish and snails
form a clicking carpet
as I walk the harmonious shoreline.

 

When Venus starts to shine
in the holy last light, a regal love returns,
and I hear the waves’ choir—
a mermaid’s song or the sound of a lyre.
And in my soul, another star like Venus burns.

Quietud, quietud. . . Ya la ciudad de oro
ha entrado en el misterio de la tarde.
La catedral es un gran relicario.
La bahía unifica sus cristales
en un azul de arcaicas mayúsculas
de los antifonarios y misales.
Las barcas pescadoras estilizan
el blancor de sus velas triangulares
y como un eco que dijera: “Ulises,”
junta alientos de flores y de sales.

[p 1907]

Peace and more peace . . . now the city of gold
has entered the mystery of twilight.
The cathedral is one great reliquary.
The bay brings together its glass crystals
in a blue both archaic and major,
drawn from antiphonaries and missals.
The fishing boats have a stylized version
of whiteness with their triangular sails,
an echo, perhaps, that cries, “Ulysses!”
and mixes the salty air with flowers.

El mar como un vasto cristal azogado
refleja la lámina de un cielo de zinc;
lejanas bandadas de pájaros manchan
el fondo bruñido de pálido gris.

 

El sol como un vidrio redondo y opaco
con paso de enfermo camina al cenit;
el viento marino descansa en la sombra
teniendo de almohada su negro clarín.

 

Las ondas que mueven su vientre de plomo
debajo del muelle parecen gemir.
Sentado en un cable, fumando su pipa,
está un marinero pensando en las playas
de un vago, lejano, brumoso país.

 

Es viejo ese lobo. Tostaron su cara
los rayos de fuego del sol del Brasil;
los recios tifones del mar de la China
le han visto bebiendo su frasco de
gin.

 

La espuma impregnada de yodo y salitre
ha tiempo conoce su roja nariz,
sus crespos cabellos, sus bíceps de atleta,
su gorra de lona, su blusa de dril.

 

En medio del humo que forma el tabaco
ve el viejo el lejano, brumoso país,
adonde una tarde caliente y dorada
tendidas las velas partió el bergantín . . .

The sea like some giant crystal of quicksilver
reflects the metal plate of a sky of rolled zinc.
Far away there are flocks of birds forming a stain
on a polished background of a pale shade of gray.

 

The sun, a piece of glass, both rounded and opaque,
walks toward its zenith with a sick person’s steps.
The breezes from the sea take a rest in the shade,
using as a pillow what their black trumpets play.

 

The waves, moving their bellies made of lead,
seem to be moaning under the great wharf.
Sitting on a cable and puffing on his pipe,
there is a mariner, thinking about beaches
in some distant country, lost on a foggy day.

 

That sea-wolf is ancient. The burning rays of light
from the Brazilian sun toasted him to a crisp.
The harshest typhoons on the South China Sea
found him drinking his gin in a protected bay.

 

Iodine and nitrate fecundate the sea-spray
that has known his red nose for a very long time,
and his curly hair, too, and his athlete’s biceps,
his hat made of canvas, his shirt ripped in a fray.

 

In the midst of the smoke from clouds of tobacco
the old man can discern the country lost in fog,
where on one afternoon that was golden and warm,
the brigantine weighed anchor and then sailed away.
La siesta del trópico. El lobo se aduerme.
Ya todo lo envuelve la gama del gris.
Parece que un suave y enorme esfumino
del curvo horizonte borrara el confín.

 

La siesta del trópico. La vieja cigarra
ensaya su ronca guitarra senil,
y el grillo preludia un solo monótono
en la única cuerda que está en su violín.

[1891]

Tropical siesta. The sea-wolf is sleeping.
The gamut of the gray enshrouds everything now.
It seems like some gentle and huge stump of paper
for shading the lines that frame the curved sky today.

 

Tropical siesta, and the old cicada
practices its guitar so hoarse and so senile.
The cricket tries out a monotonous solo
on the one-stringed violin it knows how to play.

En el país de las Alegorías
Salomé siempre danza,
ante el tiarado Herodes,
eternamente.
Y la cabeza de Juan el Bautista,
ante quien tiemblan los leones,
cae al hachazo. Sangre llueve.
Pues la rosa sexual
al entreabrirse
conmueve todo lo que existe,
con su efluvio carnal
y con su enigma espiritual.

[p 1905]

In the land of Allegories,
Salomé always dances
before Herod and his miter,
eternally.
And the head of John the Baptist,
who has made the lions tremble,
falls at the stroke of an axe. Blood flows.
For when the sexual rose
begins to open,
it moves all that exists
with the carnality it secretes
and the spilling of the sacred secrets.

El hambre medioeval va por
sendas de sulfúreo vapor
y olor de muerte. ¡Horror, horror!

 

Ladran con un furioso celo
los canes del diablo hacia el cielo
por la boca del Mongibelo.

 

Tiemblan pueblos en desvarío
de hambre, de terror y de frío . . .
¡Dios mío! ¡Dios mío! ¡Dios mío! . . .

 

Como en la dantesca Comedia,
nos eriza el pelo y asedia
el espanto de la Edad Media.

 

Pasan furias haciendo gestos,
pasan mil rostros descompuestos;
allá arriba hay signos funestos.

 

Hay pueblos de espectros humanos
que van mordiéndose las manos.
Comienzan su obra los gusanos.

 

Falta la terrible trompeta.
Mas oye el alma del poeta
crujir los huesos del planeta.

[1908]

Through the smoky plumes of sulfur,
that stalking medieval hunger
with the smell of death, the horror!

 

Barking with furious envy,
the Devil’s dogs assail the sky
as the Mongibelo flows by.

 

People tremble, delirious
from hunger, cold, the fear of this.
Dear God! Sweet Father of Jesus!

 

Throughout his
Commedia
’s pages,
Dante’s hair bristled at sieges,
terrors of the Middle Ages.

 

The furies pass, tempers explode,
a thousand faces decompose,
dire signs that the sky will impose.

 

Throngs of ghastly human specters
are gnawing at their own fingers.
Worms are adding to their oeuvres.

 

The shrill trumpet is still silent,
but there’s a sound for the poet—
creaking boneyards of this planet.

 

 

Juventud, divino tesoro,
¡ya te vas para no volver!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro . . .
y a veces lloro sin querer . . .

 

Plural ha sido la celeste
historia de mi corazón.
Era una dulce niña, en este
mundo de duelo y aflicción.

 

Miraba como el alba pura;
sonreía como una flor.
Era su cabellera obscura
hecha de noche y de dolor.

 

Yo era tímido como un niño.
Ella, naturalmente, fue,
para mi amor hecho de armiño,
Herodías y Salomé . . .

 

Juventud, divino tesoro,
¡ya te vas para no volver!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro . . .
y a veces lloro sin querer . . .

 

Y más consoladora y más
halagadora y expresiva,
la otra fue más sensitiva
cual no pensé encontrar jamás.

 

 

Treasured days of my youth and boyhood,
you’re gone and won’t be back again!
You know I’d cry if only I could,
then tears come and I wish they’d end.

 

The celestial history of my heart
is best told in plural. She
was a sweet girl playing the first part
set in this world’s great misery.