Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish Edition)

by Antonio Machado

  ufano de su nueva fortuna, y su opulencia,

  a regalar a Alfonso los huertos de Valencia;

  o que, tras la aventura que acreditó sus bríos,

  pedía la conquista de los inmensos ríos

  indianos a la corte, la madre de soldados;

  guerreros y adalides que han de tornar, cargados

  de plata y oro, a España, en regios galeones,

  para la presa cuervos, para la lid leones.

  Filósofos nutridos de sopa de convento

  contemplan impasibles el amplio firmamento;

  y si les llega en sueños, como un rumor distante,

  clamor de mercaderes de muelles de Levante,

  no acudirán siquiera a preguntar ¿que pasa?

  Y ya la guerra ha abierto las puertas de su casa.

  Castilla miserable, ayer dominadora,

  envuelta en sus harapos desprecia cuanto ignora.

  El sol va declinando. De la ciudad lejana

  me llega un armonioso tañido de campana

  —ya irán a su rosario las enlutadas viejas—.

  De entre las peñas salen dos lindas comadrejas;

  me miran y se alejan, huyendo, y aparecen

  de nuevo, ¡tan curiosas!... Los campos se obscurecen.

  Hacia el camino blanco está el mesón abierto

  al campo ensombrecido y al pedregal desierto.

  On the Banks of the Duero

  It was mid July. A handsome day.

  Alone up rocky slopes I found my way,

  slowly searching out corners of shadow.

  At intervals I stopped to dry my brow

  and give respite to my heaving chest;

  or forcing my step, forward my body pressed

  up to the right, exhausted, and I took

  a walking stick, a kind of shepherd’s crook,

  and scaling hills to sites of soaring birds

  of prey, I trod harsh-smelling mountain herbs—

  rosemary, sage, and lavender and thyme.

  Over the bitter fields fell a sun of flame.

  A vulture of broad wings in majestic flight

  was crossing solitary through blue light.

  I discerned a sharp peak beyond far fields

  and a round hill like an embroidered shield

  and scarlet slopes over the brownish soil

  —the scattered rags of an old coat of mail—

  the small bald ranges where the Duero swerves

  to realize an archer’s crossbow curve

  around Soria—Soria is a barbican

  that Castilian towers link to Aragón.

  I saw the horizon enclosed by darkened knolls

  and rimmed with northern and evergreen oaks,

  denuded cliffsides and a humble green

  where merino sheep graze and the bull on its knees

  broods in the grass; the borders of the river

  where clear summer sun lights the green poplars;

  and silently some distant travelers,

  so minute!—carts, riders and muleteers—

  cross the long bridge, and under the arcades

  of stone, the Duero waters turn dark shades

  of silver.

  The Duero crosses the oaken heart

  of Iberia and Castilla.

  O land apart,

  sad and noble high plains, wastelands and stone,

  land without plow or streams, the treeless zones,

  the crumbling cities, innless roads, and throngs

  of stupefied boors without dance or song,

  who from their dying hearths still escape free

  like your long rivers, Castilla, to the sea!

  Miserable Castilla—a master yesterday—

  wrapped in her rags, disdaining the unknown way.

  Does she hope, sleep or dream? Recall her blood

  spilled when she had the fever of the sword?

  Everything moves, flows, turns or races by;

  the sea and mountain change and the moist eye

  of judgment. Gone? Over fields the ghost still soars

  of a people placing God above their wars.

  A mother, in other days a source of captains,

  is now a stepmother of lowly urchins.

  Castilla is no longer that generous state

  when Myo Cid Rodrigo rode with haughty gait,

  proud of his opulence and new commands,

  bequeathing Alfonso Valencia’s orchard lands;

  or those whose courage gained them famed report,

  who begged the mother of soldiers, the royal court,

  to conquer the enormous Indian rivers,

  whose warriors and leaders came back, deliver-

  ing silver and gold to Spain in regal galleons—

  for booty, ravens, and for battle, lions.

  Philosophers who fed on convent salt,

  now impassive, ponder the starry vault,

  and if as a far rumble in dreams they hear

  merchants shouting from the Levantine piers,

  they will not even try to ask their fate.

  The war stalking the house has breached the gate.

  Miserable Castilla—a master yesterday—

  wrapped in her rags, disdaining the unknown way.

  The sun is setting. From the distant town

  I hear the bells harmoniously resound—

  old women in black mourning now intone

  their rosary. Two sharp weasels slip between big stones,

  spot me, run off, and gaping reappear.

  The fields are fading on the somber sphere.

  Along the white road is an inn open,

  facing the darkened field and desert stone.

  Por tierras de España

  El hombre de estos campos que incendia los pinares

  y su despojo aguarda como botín de guerra,

  antaño hubo raído los negros encinares,

  talado los robustos robledos de la sierra.

  Hoy ve a sus pobres hijos huyendo de sus lares;

  la tempestad llevarse los limos de la tierra

  por los sagrados ríos hacia los anchos mares;

  y en páramos malditos trabaja, sufre y yerra.

  Es hijo de una estirpe de rudos caminantes,

  pastores que conducen sus hordas de merinos

  a Extremadura fértil, rebaños trashumantes

  que mancha el polvo y dora el sol de los caminos.

  Pequeño, ágil, sufrido, los ojos de hombre astuto,

  hundidos, recelosos, movibles; y trazadas

  cual arco de ballesta, en el semblante enjuto

  de pómulos salientes, las cejas muy pobladas.

  Abunda el hombre malo del campo y de la aldea,

  capaz de insanos vicios y crímenes bestiales,

  que bajo el pardo sayo esconde un alma fea,

  esclava de los siete pecados capitales.

  Los ojos siempre turbios de envidia o de tristeza,

  guarda su presa y llora la que el vecino alcanza;

  ni para su infortunio ni goza su riqueza;

  le hieren y acongojan fortuna y malandanza.

  El numen de estos campos es sanguinario y fiero:

  al declinar la tarde, sobre el remoto alcor,

  veréis agigantarse la forma de un arquero,

  la forma de un inmenso centauro flechador.

  Veréis llanuras bélicas y páramos de asceta

  —no fue por estos campos el bíblico jardín—:

  son tierras para el águila, un trozo de planeta

  por donde cruza errante la sombra de Caín.

  In Spanish Lands

  The man of these lands, burning down the pines,

  hoarding their branches like the loot of war,

  once dug the black oaks out of tangled vines

  and felled rough oaks high on the mountain floor.

  Today his son in poverty has fled

  as storms have stripped the nutrients from the soil

  and holy rivers washed t
hem from their bed

  down to broad seas. On cursed wastelands he toils,

  suffers and roams, a son of those who walk

  the road, shepherds who drive their hordes of sheep

  to rich Extremadura, nomadic flocks

  dust-stained, gilded by sunlight of the steppes.

  He’s short, limber, suffering; the jealous eye

  of a quick cunning man, and his eyebrows,

  curving like a crossbow over his dry

  jutting cheekbones, shape his thick hairy frown.

  In field and village these bad men abound.

  They’re good at insane vice and bestial crime.

  Under brown capes they hide an ugly soul.

  Slaves of the seven deadly sins, their time

  on earth is eyes blurred with envy and grief;

  happy when hanging on, furious if a neighbor

  makes it. Failure wounds them, with no relief

  from pain. No fortune in their filthy labor.

  The numen of these fields is bloody and proud,

  and when the day splinters on a far hill

  you’ll see a giant emerging from a cloud,

  a centaur with his arrow poised to kill.

  You’ll see these warring fields and desert granite

  —no Bible garden ever graced this plain—

  a land made for the eagle, a piece of planet

  over which floats the roaming shade of Cain.

  El hospicio

  Es el hospicio, el viejo hospicio provinciano,

  el caserón ruinoso de ennegrecidas tejas

  en donde los vencejos anidan en verano

  y graznan en las noches de invierno las cornejas.

  Con su frontón al Norte, entre los dos torreones

  de antigua fortaleza, el sórdido edificio

  de grietados muros y sucios paredones,

  es un rincón de sombra eterna. ¡El viejo hospicio!

  Mientras el sol de enero su débil luz envía,

  su triste luz velada sobre los campos yermos,

  a un ventanuco asoman, al declinar el día,

  algunos rostros pálidos, atónitos y enfermos,

  a contemplar los montes azules de la sierra;

  o, de los cielos blancos, como sobre una fosa,

  caer la blanca nieve sobre la fría tierra,

  ¡sobre la tierra fría la nieve silenciosa!...

  “The poorhouse”

  The poorhouse, the old provincial poorhouse,

  the great tumbledown home of blackened tiles,

  where in the summer martins make their nest

  and crows are cawing through the winter nights.

  Its gable facing north, the old fortress falls

  between two turrets, the sordid building groans

  with crackled rooms and grimy outer walls,

  a corner of eternal shade. Old poorhouse!

  While January sun sends out its feeble rays,

  a sad cloudy light over wasted fields,

  as day evaporates, some pallid faces

  gape from a tiny window, dazed and sick,

  to contemplate the blue hills of the range

  or the white snow dropping on the cold soil

  from the white heavens as onto a grave,

  upon the frozen earth the silent snow!

  “Eres tú, Guadarrama, viejo amigo”

  ¿Eres tú, Guadarrama, viejo amigo,

  la sierra gris y blanca,

  la sierra de mis tardes madrileñas

  que yo veía en el azul pintada?

  Por tus barrancos hondos

  y por tus cumbres agrias,

  mil Guadarramas y mil soles vienen,

  cabalgando conmigo, a tus entrañas.

  Camino de Balsaín, 1911

  “Guadarrama, is it you, old friend?”

  Guadarrama, is it you, old friend,

  the sierra gray and white,

  the mountains of my Madrid afternoons

  when I saw you painted against the blue.

  Up through your deep ravines

  and through your bitter peaks,

  a thousand Guadarramas and a thousand suns

  canter with me into your body.

  Balsain Road, 1911

  En abril, las aguas mil

  Son de abril las aguas mil.

  Sopla el viento achubascado,

  y entre nublado y nublado

  hay trozos de cielo añil.

  Agua y sol. El iris brilla.

  En una nube lejana,

  zigzaguea

  una centella amarilla.

  La lluvia da en la ventana

  y el cristal repiquetea.

  A través de la neblina

  que forma la lluvia fina,

  se divisa un prado verde,

  y un encinar se esfumina,

  y una sierra gris se pierde.

  Los hilos del aguacero

  sesgan las nacientes frondas,

  y agitan las turbias ondas

  en el remanso del Duero.

  Lloviendo está en los habares

  y en las pardas sementeras;

  hay sol en los encinares,

  charcos por las carreteras.

  Lluvia y sol. Ya se oscurece

  el campo, ya se ilumina;

  allí un cerro desparece,

  allá surge una colina.

  Ya son claros, ya sombríos

  los dispersos caseríos,

  los lejanos torreones.

  Hacia la sierra plomiza

  van rodando en pelotones

  nubes de guata y ceniza.

  “The thousand waters of April”

  The thousand waters of April.

  The wind blows in squalls,

  and between clouds and clouds

  are patches of indigo sky.

  Water and sun. The rainbow gleams.

  In a remote cloud

  zigzags

  a thread of yellow lightning.

  The rain batters the window

  and the panes chime.

  In the midst of the haze

  shaped by the fine drizzle,

  a green meadow emerges

  and an oak forest blurs

  and a mountain ridge is lost.

  The threads of a downpour

  slant into newborn fronds

  and stir up muddy waves

  in the backwater of the Duero.

  It is raining on the bean fields

  and on the brown seeded lands.

  There is sun on the oak groves,

  puddles along the roadways.

  Rain and sun. A darkening

  of fields, now they brighten.

  Here a slope disappears,

  there a hill breaks into light.

  Now shining, now somber

  the scattered hamlets,

  the far castle towers.

  Over the leaden earth,

  rolling as huge globes,

  go clouds of cotton and ash.

  Un loco

  Es una tarde mustia y desabrida

  de un otoño sin frutos, en la tierra

  estéril y raída

  donde la sombra de un centauro yerra.

  Por un camino en la árida llanura,

  entre álamos marchitos,

  a solas con su sombra y su locura

  va el loco, hablando a gritos.

  Lejos se ven sombríos estepares,

  colinas con malezas y cambrones,

  y ruinas de viejos encinares,

  coronando los agrios serrijones.

  El loco vocifera

  a solas con su sombra y su quimera.

  Es horrible y grotesta su figura;

  flaco, sucio, maltrecho y mal rapado,

  ojos de calentura

  iluminan su rostro demacrado.

  Huye de la ciudad... Pobres maldades,

  misérrimas virtudes y quehaceres

  de chubs aburridos, y ruindades

  de ociosos mercaderes.

  Por los campos de Dios e
l loco avanza.

  Tras la tierra esquelética y sequiza

  —rojo de herrumbre y pardo de ceniza—

  hay un sueño de lirio en lontananza.

  Huye de la ciudad. ¡El tedio urbano!

  —¡carne triste y espíritu villano!—.

  No fue por una trágica amargura

  esta alma errante desgajada y rota;

  purga un pecado ajeno: la cordura,

  la terrible cordura del idiota.

  A Madman

  It is a murky and disturbing afternoon

  of a fruitless autumn on the sterile

  and worn-out land

  where the shadow of a centaur wanders.

  Along the road of the arid plain,

  amid shrunken poplars,

  alone with his madness and shadows

  goes the madman, talking in shouts.

  Far off the darkening steppes appear,

  hills of underbrush and bramble,

  and ruins of the old oaks

  that crown the raw sierra summits.

  The madman screams his head off,

  alone with his shadow and his monsters.

  His face is horrible and grotesque,

  skinny, filthy, battered and unshaven;

  boiling eyes

  fire his wasted face.

  He flees the city and its wretched evils

  and awful virtues, the jobs

  of bored pimps and the stinginess

  of lazy merchants.

  Through the fields of God the madman walks.

  Across the dry skeleton of earth

  —red with iron rust and brown with ash—