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

by Antonio Machado

  a mountain fragrance follows him; grass mowed

  across the pleasant fields is fiery hay.

  The pilgrim on his lengthy journey reined

  his heart in check. He found that it was best

  for iron lines to wait and be contained

  until the soul could ripen in his chest.

  All this I dreamt: a homicidal time

  floating us to our death or drifting (and

  in vain) was just the peak of Adam’s dream.

  I saw a man who in his naked hand

  revealed the coals of life, a constant flash

  of Heraclitean fire, and yet no ash.

  Love and the Sierra

  He galloped over harsh sierra ground

  one afternoon amid the ashen rock.

  The tempest’s leaden ball was heard rebound

  mountain to mountain echoing with shock.

  Suddenly, amid the glazing radiance

  of burning lightning bolts, below high pines

  his horse reared up next to a precipice.

  He swerved back to the path, seizing the reins.

  He looked. The sundered cloud came into view,

  and in the rift the sharpened summits grew

  of farther sierra peaks hanging above,

  blazing. It seemed to be lightning of stone.

  And did he see God’s face? He saw his love.

  He screamed: To die in these cold hills alone!

  Pío Baroja46

  In London or Madrid, Geneva or Rome

  he is the ingenuous passerby surprised,

  a taedium vitae in varied language foam,

  in sundry masks but of one face comprised.

  He strolls about, his hands folded behind

  him, and as he goes by he tilts toward

  the earth. All in his path are a new find,

  whether on high or ruinous regard.

  The nineteenth century offered—very late—

  the great Baroja embers of flaming coal,

  and in the twentieth, world war’s at his gate,

  covering all of his red-haired face with ash.

  From the romantic rose, lost in the snow,

  he’s seen the last petal linger and crash.

  Azorín47

  The red meadow made of fiery wheat,

  the flowery beanfield floating with fragrance,

  cups of Manchegan saffron were his treat.

  He didn’t miss the fine lily of France.

  Whose is that double look of candor and

  boredom, the quivering voice and honest sign,

  a cold man, with nobility of mein,

  who counters with the fervor of his hand?

  Don’t place him in the end under the weight

  of stormy summits or unfriendly wood,

  but in a transparent morning’s plain light

  where the far mountain wears a foaming hood

  of stone near a small village on the plain

  and the sharp tower against the blue of Spain!

  To Emiliano Barral, Sculptor

  Your chisel chopped me

  out of a roseate stone

  holding a cold dawn

  eternally spellbound.

  And the sour melancholy

  of dreamed-about grandeur

  so Spanish (a fantasy

  dressing up my laziness)

  emerged from that rock

  that is my mirror. The face

  came line by line, plane by plane,

  my mouth of little thirst,

  and under the arc of a hazy brow

  two eyes with a far-off gaze

  that I wish were mine

  as they are in your sculpture:

  eyes dug out of hard stone,

  in stone, so as not to see.

  Madrid, 1922

  Solitudes to a Master

  1

  Not a professor of energy,

  Francisco de Icaza,

  but of melancholy.

  2

  From his old race

  he keeps the brief word

  and deep phrase.

  3

  Like the olive grove,

  he gives a lot of fruit

  and scant shadow.

  4

  In his clear poem

  he sings and meditates,

  but no shout or frown.

  5

  And in perfect rhyme

  —at the edge of the water

  the double black poplar—.

  6

  His singing carries

  pools of water

  that look still

  and are not,

  but in no hurry

  to go to the sea.

  7

  His songs have

  the smell and zip

  of old loves.

  From Indian sun

  a ripeness of fruit

  and rich taste.

  8

  Francisco de Icaza,

  from Spain of old

  to the New España,

  from a dawn-gold coin

  you shape your lyre

  and viceroy’s profile.

  Dreams in Dialogue

  1

  How suddenly her face on the plateau

  appears to me! And then my word evokes

  green meadows and the arid plains below,

  the flowering blackberries and ashen rocks.

  Obedient to my memory, the black oak

  bursts on the hill, the poplars then define

  the river, and the shepherd climbs the cloak

  of knolls while a town balcony shines: mine,

  ours. Can you see? Remote, toward Aragón,

  the sierra of Moncayo, white and rose.

  Look at the bonfire of that cloud, and far

  shining against the blue, my wife, a star.

  Santana hill, beyond the Duero, shows,

  turning violet in soundless afternoon.

  2

  You ask me why my heart flies from the coast

  back to Castilla, to towering raw terrains,

  why, near the sea, in fertile fields, I most

  long to be back on high and barren plains.

  No one chooses his love. It was my fate

  that one day chose to send me to gray hills

  where falling snows freeze and obliterate

  the shadows of dead oaks—now winter still.

  Out of that spur of Spain, rocky and high,

  I bring you now, blooming Guadalquivir,

  a sprig of rosemary, a pungent thorn.

  My heart is living, yes, where it was born,

  but not to life—to love, the Duero near,

  the whitewashed wall and cypress in the sky!

  3

  Lady, the embers of a shattered dusk,

  its storm clouds a monotony of brown,

  have quickly painted rocks of ashen rust

  on a far hill with blazings of the dawn.

  It is a dawn congealed on frozen rock

  that overwhelms the traveler with awe

  and dread—more than a furious lion stalk-

  ing the bright day, or great bears in the claw

  of mountains. Seized by flaming love, with burns

  and turbulence of dreams of hope and fright,

  I’m walking toward the sea, oblivion,

  and not like those huge boulders toward the night

  as the dark somber planet turns and turns.

  Don’t try to call them back. I must go on.

  4

  O solitude and now my one companion!

  O muse of wonder offering the word—

  I never asked for—to my voice! A question:

  Whom am I talking to? And am I heard?

  Abstracted from the noisy masquerade,

  I turn my sadness, punctured by no friend,

  to you, my lady of the veiled face, in shade,

  who when you talk to me are always veiled.

  Today I think: who I am I
don’t care;

  it’s not my grave enigma when I stare

  into my inner mirror, but the mystery

  of your warm loving voice. Now clear the glare

  and show your face to me. I want to see

  your eyes made out of diamonds fixed on me.

  From My Notebook

  1

  Not marble hard and enduring,

  not music or painting,

  but the word in time.

  2

  Song and story are poetry.

  A live story is sung

  told by its melody.

  3

  The soul creates its banks,

  mountains of ash and lead,

  small copses of spring.

  4

  All imagery

  not springing from the river

  is cheap jewelry.

  5

  Choose poor rhyme,

  undefined assonance.

  When the song tells nothing

  maybe the rhyme is lame.

  6

  Free verse, free verse.

  Better to be free of verse

  when it enslaves.

  7

  Rhymes verbal and weak

  and temporal are strong.

  Adjective and noun

  are still pools of clear water,

  are accidents of a verb

  in the lyric grammar

  of today that will be tomorrow,

  of yesterday that is still.

  45 These sonnets under one title are sometimes related, but they are not a sequence and are to be taken as separate sonnets.

  46 Spanish novelist (1872–1956).

  47 Pseudonym of Spanish essayist and novelist José Martínez Ruiz (1873–1967), known for his descriptions of Castilian towns and landscapes.

  Sonetos

  1

  Tuvo mi corazón, encrucijada

  de cien caminos, todos pasajeros,

  un gentío sin cita ni posada,

  como en andén ruidoso de viajeros.

  Hizo a los cuatro vientos su jornada,

  disperso el corazón por cien senderos

  de llana tierra o piedra aborrascada,

  y a la suerte, en el mar, de cien veleros.

  Hoy, enjambre que torna a su colmena

  cuando el bando de cuervos enronquece

  en busca de su peña denegrida,

  vuelve mi corazón a su faena,

  con néctares del campo que florece

  y el luto de la tarde desabrida.

  2

  Verás la maravilla del camino,

  camino de soñada Compostela

  —¡oh monte lila y flavo!—, peregrino,

  en un llano, entre chopos de candela.

  Otoño con dos ríos ha dorado

  el cerco del gigante centinela

  de piedra y luz, prodigio torreado

  que en el azul sin mancha se modela.

  Verás en la llanura una jauría

  de agudos galgos y un señor de caza,

  cabalgando a lejana serranía,

  vano fantasma de una vieja raza.

  Debes entrar cuando en la tarde fría

  brille un balcón de la desierta plaza.

  3

  ¿Empañé tu memoria? ¡Cuántas veces!

  La vida baja como un ancho río,

  y cuando lleva al mar alto navío

  va con cieno verdoso y turbias heces.

  Y más si hubo tormenta en sus orillas,

  y él arrastra el botín de la tormenta,

  si en su cielo la nube cenicienta

  se incendió de centellas amarillas.

  Pero aunque fluya hacia la mar ignota,

  es la vida también agua de fuente

  que de claro venero, gota a gota,

  o ruidoso penacho de torrente,

  bajo el azul, sobre la piedra brota.

  Y allí suena tu nombre ¡eternamente!

  4

  Está luz de Sevilla... Es el palacio

  donde nací, con su rumor de fuente.

  Mi padre, en su despacho. —La alta frente,

  la breve mosca, y el bigote lacio—.

  Mi padre, aún joven. Lee, escribe, hojea

  sus libros y medita. Se levanta;

  va hacia la puerta del jardín. Pasea.

  A veces habla solo, a veces canta.

  Sus grandes ojos de mirar inquieto

  ahora vagar parecen, sin objeto

  donde puedan posar, en el vacío.

  Ya escapan de su ayer a su mañana;

  ya miran en el tiempo, ¡padre mío!,

  piadosamente mi cabeza cana.

  Sonnets

  1

  My heart was where a hundred roads converge,

  all of them passing through, and a broad crowd

  of aimless, roomless travelers, who surge

  as on a railway platform chaotic and loud.

  My heart made its workday in the four winds

  and spread itself along a hundred ways

  of level land and where a rock storm begins

  and happened on the sea of a hundred sails.

  Today a swarm of bees flies to its hive

  at the gray hour when bands of crows are hoarse,

  flapping around to find their blackened cave,

  and my heart starts to do its work, and soon

  it joins the flowering fields of plump nectars

  and mourning of a sullen afternoon.

  2

  Pilgrim, you’ll see the wonder of the road,

  the road that goes to dreamed-of Compostela.48

  O peak of flax and lilac! And below,

  the plain with poplars forming a fire umbrella.

  Autumn and its two rivers have placed gold,

  making a circle round the giant sentinel

  of stone and light, prodigious with its old

  towers against the perfect blue. Its spell

  goes on across the plain: a pack of lean

  greyhounds and then the master of the chase

  riding into the distant range. You’ll see

  the vain phantasm of an ancient race.

  You should get there when in the cold twilight

  of the bare square, a balcony burns night.

  3

  Have I dirtied your memory? So often!

  A life descends like an enormous river

  floating a tall ship to the sea again,

  with greenish slime and scum all in a stir.

  Especially if a storm attacks the shore

  and drags about the booty of the storm,

  and in their sky some clouds of ashes soar

  and crack in yellow lightning hugely warm.

  Yet while it flows toward the unknown sea,

  life also is the water of a spring

  dripping and trickling brightly from its source

  or else a raucous cataract flooding

  below the blue and over broken rocks.

  And there your name echoes eternally.

  4

  Light of Sevilla, the great palace house

  where I was born, the gurgling fountain sound.

  My father in his study. Forehead round

  and high, short goatee, mustache drooping down.

  My father still is young. He reads and writes,

  leafs through his books and meditates. He springs

  up near the garden door, strolls by the gate.

  Sometimes he talks out loud, sometimes he sings.

  And now his large eyes with their anxious glance

  appear to wander with no object to

  focus upon, not finding anywhere

  to rest in void. They slip from past and through

  tomorrow where, my father, they advance

  to gaze so pityingly at my gray hair.

  48 Santiago de Compostela, a beautiful medieval city in Galicia, northwestern Spain, and a chief shrine for Christian pilgrimage, named for Santiago, Saint James (Yaakov), one of the apostles and reputed br
other of Jesus.

  Viejas canciones

  1

  A la hora del rocío,

  de la niebla salen

  sierra blanca y prado verde.

  ¡El sol en los encinares!

  Hasta borrarse en el cielo,

  suben las alondras.

  ¿Quién puso plumas al campo?

  ¿Quién hizo alas de tierra loca?

  Al viento, sobre la sierra,

  tiene el águila dorada

  las anchas alas abiertas.

  Sobre la picota

  donde nace el río,

  sobre el lago de turquesa

  y los barrancos de verdes pinos;

  sobre viente aldeas,

  sobre cien caminos...

  Por los senderos del aire,

  señora águila,

  ¿dónde vais a todo vuelo tan de mañana?

  2

  Ya había un albor de luna

  en el cielo azul.

  ¡La luna en los espartales,

  cerca de Alicún!