Stories and Narrative: December 2024

Ruben Dario Poems

Fatality

The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient;

the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing:

there is no pain as great as being alive,

no burden heavier than that of conscious life.

To be, and to know nothing, and to lack a way,

and the dread of having been, and future terrors...

And the sure terror of being dead tomorrow,

And to suffer all through life and through the darkness,

and through what we do not know and hardly suspect...

And the flesh that temps us with bunches of cool grapes,

and the tomb that awaits us with its funeral sprays,

and not to know where we go,

nor whence we came! ...

Far Away

Ox that I saw in my childhood, as you steamed

in the burning gold on the Nicaraguan sun,

there on the rich plantation filled with tropical

harmonies; woodland dove, of the woods that sang

with the sound of the wind, of axes, of birds and wild bulls:

I salute you both, because you are both my life.

You, heavy ox, evoke the gentle dawn

that signaled it was time to milk the cow,

when my existence was all white and rose;

and you, sweet mountain dove, cooing and calling,

you signify all that my own springtime, now so far away, possessed of the Divine Springtime.

Portico

I am the singer who of late put by

The verse azulean and the chant profane,

Across whose nights a rossignol would cry

And prove himself a lark at morn again.

Lord was I of my garden-place of dreams,

Of heaping roses and swan-haunted brakes;

Lord of the doves; lord of the silver streams,

Of gondolas and lilies on the lakes.

And very eighteenth century; both old

And very modern; bold, cosmopolite;

Like Hugo daring, like Verlaine half-told,

And thirsting for illusions infinite.

From childhood it was sorrow that I knew;

My youth-was ever youth my own indeed?-

Its roses still their perfume round me strew,

Their perfume of a melancholy seed-

A rainless colt my instinct galloped free,

My youth bestrode a colt without a rein;

Intoxicate I went, a belted blade with me;

If I fell not-'twas God who did sustain.

Within my garden stood a statue fair,

Of marble seeming, yet of flesh and bone;

A gentle spirit was incarnate there

Of sensitive and sentimental tone.

So timid of the world, it fain would hide

And from its walls of silence issue not,

Save when the Spring released upon its tide

The hour of melody it had begot-

The hour of sunset and of hidden kiss;

The hour of gloaming twilight and retreat;

The hour of madrigal, the hour of bliss,

Of 'I adore thee' and 'Alas' too sweet.

And 'mid the gamut of the flute, perchance,

Would come a ripple of crystal mysteries,

Recalling Pan and his glad Grecian dance

With the intoning of old Latin keys,

With such a sweep, and ardor so intense,

That on the statue suddenly were born

The muscled goat-thighs shaggy and immense,

And o the brow the satyr's pair of horn.

As Gongora's Galatea, so in fine

The fair marquise of Verlaine captured me;

And so unto the passion half divine

Was joined a human sensuality;

All longing and all ardor, the mere sense

And natural vigor; and without a sign

Of stage effect or literature's pretence-

If there is ever a soul sincere-'tis mine.

The ivory tower awakened my desire;

I longed to enclose myself in selfish bliss,

Yet hungered after space, my thirst on fire

For heaven, from out the shades of my abyss.

As with the sponge the salt sea saturates

Below the oozing wave, so was my heart,-

Tender and soft,-bedrenched with bitter fates

That world and flesh and devil here impart.

But through the grace of God my conscience

Elected unto good its better part;

If there were hardness left in any sense

It melted soft beneath the touch of Art.

My intellect was freed from baser thought,

My soul was bathed in the Castalian flood,

My heart a pilgrim went, and so I caught

The harmony from out the sacred wood.

Oh, sacred wood! Oh, rumor, that profound

Stirs from the sacred woodland's heart divine!

Oh, plenteous fountain in whose power is wound

And overcome our destiny malign!

Grove of ideals, where the real halts,

Where flesh is flame alive, and Psyche floats;

The while the satyr makes his old assaults,

Loose Philomel her azure drunken throats.

Fantastic pearl and music amorous

Adown the green and flowering laurel tops;

Hypsipyle stealthily the rose doth buss;

And the faun's mouth the tender stalking crops.

There were the god pursues the flying maid,

Where springs the reed of Pan from out the mire,

The Life eternal hath its furrows laid,

And wakens the All-Father's mystic choir.

The soul that enters there disrobed should go

A-tremble with desire and longing pure

Over the wounding spine and thorn below,

So should it dream, be stirred, and sing secure.

Life, Light and Truth, as in a triple flame

Produce the inner radiance infinite;

Art, pure as Christ, is heartened to exclaim;

I am indeed the Life, the Truth, the Light!

The Life is mystery; the Light is blind;

The Truth beyond our reach both daunts and fades;

The sheer perfection nowhere do we find;

The ideal sleeps, a secret, in the shades.

Therefore to be sincere is to be strong.

Bare as it is, what glimmer hath the star;

The water tells the fountain's soul in song

And voice of crystal flowing out afar.

Such my intent was,-of my spirit pure

To make a star, a fountain music-drawn,

With horror of the thing called literature-

And mad with madness of the gloam and dawn.

Of the blue twilight, such as gives the world

Which the celestial ecstasies inspires,

The haze and minor chord,-let flutes be heard!

Aurora, daughter of the Sun,-sound, lyres!

Let pass the stone if any use the sling;

Let pass, should hands of violence point the dart.

The stone from out the sling is for the waves a thing;

Hate's arrow of the idle wind is part.

Virtue is with the tranquil and the braves;

The fire interior burneth well and high;

Triumphant over rancor and the grave,

Toward Bethlehem-the caravan goes by!

Blazon

The snow-white Olympic swan,

with beak of rose-red agate,

preens his eucharistic wing,

which he opens to the sun like a fan.

His shining neck is curved

like the arm of a lyre,

like the handle of a Greek amphora,

like the prow of a ship.

He is the swan of divine origin

whose kiss mounted through fields

of silk to the rosy peaks

of Leda's sweet hills.

White king of Castalia's fount,

his triumph illumines the Danube;

Da Vinci was his baron in Italy;

Lohengrin is his blond prince.

His whiteness is akin to linen,

to the buds of white roses,

to the diamantine white

of the fleece of an Easter lamb.

He is the poet of perfect verses,

and his lyric cloak is of ermine;

he is the magic, the regal bird

who, dying, rhymes the soul in his song.

This winged aristocrat displays

white lilies on a blue field;

and Pompadour, gracious and lovely,

has stroked hs feathers.

He rows and rows on the lake

where dreams wait for the unhappy,

where a golden gondola waits

for the sweetheart of Louis of Bavaria.

Countess, give the swans your love,

for they are gods of an alluring land

and are made of perfume and ermine,

of white light, of silk, and of dreams.

Nocturne

Silence of the night , a sad, nocturnal

silence--Why does my soul tremble so?

I hear the humming of my blood,

and a soft storm passes through my brain.

Insomnia! Not to be able to sleep, and yet

to dream. I am the autospecimen

of spiritual dissection, the auto-Hamlet!

To dilute my sadness

in the wine of the night

in the marvelous crystal of the dark--

And I ask myself: When will the dawn come?

Someone has closed a door--

Someone has walked past--

The clock has rung three--If only it were She!—

Vultures a-wing have sullied the glory of the sky;

The winds bear on their pinions the horror of Death's

cry;

Assassinating one another, men rage and fall and die.

Has Antichrist arisen whom John at Patmos saw?

Portents are seen and marvels that fill the world with awe,

And Christ's return seems pressing, come to fulfill the Law.

The ancient Earth is pregnant with so profound a smart,

The royal dreamer, musing, silent and sad apart,

Grieves with the heavy anguish that rends the world's great

heart.

Slaughterers of ideals with the violence of fate

Have cast man in the darkness of labyrinths intricate

To be the prey and carnage of hounds of war and hate.

Lord Christ! for what art waiting to come in all Thy might

And stretch Thy hands of radiance over these wolves of

night,

And spread on high Thy banners and lave the world with

light?

Swiftly arise and pour Life's essence lavishly

On souls that crazed with hunger, or sad, or maddened be,

Who tread the paths of blindness forgetting the dawn

and Thee.

Come Lord, to make Thy glory, with lightnings on Thy

Brow!

With trembling stars around Thee and cataclysmal woe,

And bring Thy gifts of justice and peace and love below!

Let the dread horse John visioned devouring stars, pass by;

And angels sound the clarion of Judgment from on high.

My heart shall be an ember and in thy censer lie

Song of life and Hope

I am he who only yesterday said

the blue verse and the profane song,

in whose night there was a nightingale

that was a lark of light in the morning.

I was the owner of my garden of dreams,

full of roses and vague swans;

the owner of the turtledoves, the owner

of gondolas and lyres on the lakes;

and very eighteenth century and very old

and very modern; bold, cosmopolitan;

with strong Hugo and ambiguous Verlaine,

and a thirst for infinite illusions.

I knew pain from my childhood,

my youth… was it youth?

Its roses still leave me the fragrance…

a fragrance of melancholy…

My instinct launched itself like a colt without a bridle,

my youth mounted a colt without a bridle;

it was drunk and with a dagger at its belt;

if it did not fall, it was because God is good.

In my garden a beautiful statue was seen;

She judged herself to be made of marble and was living flesh;

a young soul lived in her,

sentimental, sensitive, sensitive.

And shy, before the world, so

that, locked in silence, she did not come out,

except when in the sweet spring

it was the hour of melody…

Hour of sunset and of discreet kiss;

twilight hour and retreat;

hour of madrigal and rapture,

of 'I adore you', of 'ay!' and of sigh.

And then it was in the dulzaina a game

of mysterious crystalline ranges,

a renewal of notes of the Greek Pan

and a shelling of Latin music.

With such an air and with such lively ardor,

that suddenly the statue grew

on the virile thigh goat's legs

and two satyr horns on the forehead.

Like Gongora's Galatea,

I was enchanted by the Varlenian Marquise,

and thus joined divine passion

with a sensual human hyperesthesia;

all longing, all ardor, pure sensation

and natural vigor; and without falsehood,

and without comedy and without literature…:

If there is a sincere soul, that is mine.

The marble tower tempted my desire;

I wanted to shut myself in,

and I was hungry for space and thirsty for heaven

from the shadows of my own abyss.

Like the sponge that salt saturates

in the juice of the sea, was my sweet and tender

heart, filled with bitterness

for the world, the flesh and hell.

But, by the grace of God, in my conscience

Good knew how to choose the best part;

and if there was harsh bile in my existence,

Art mellowed all bitterness.

I freed my intellect from thinking below,

the water of Castalia bathed my soul,

my heart made a pilgrimage and brought

harmony from the sacred forest.

Oh, the sacred forest! Oh, the deep

emanation of the divine heart

from the sacred forest! Oh, the fertile

source whose virtue conquers destiny!

Ideal forest that complicates reality,

there the body burns and lives and Psyche flies;

while below the satyr fornicates,

intoxicated with blue Philomela dissolves.

Pearl of dream and loving music

in the flowering dome of the green laurel,

subtle Hypsipyle drinks from the rose,

and the mouth of the faun bites the nipple.

There the god in heat goes after the female,

and the reed of Pan rises from the mud;

eternal life sows its seeds,

and the harmony of the great All springs forth.

The soul that enters there must go naked,

trembling with desire and holy fever,

on a wounding thistle and a sharp thorn:

thus it dreams, thus it vibrates and thus it sings.

Life, light and truth, such a triple flame

produces the infinite inner flame.

Pure Art, like Christ, exclaims:

Ego sum lux et veritas et vita!

And life is a mystery, the light blinds

and the inaccessible truth astonishes;

the austere perfection never surrenders,

and the ideal secret sleeps in the shadow.

That is why to be sincere is to be powerful;

the star shines so naked;

the water speaks of the soul of the fountain

in the crystal voice that flows from it.

Such was my attempt, to make of the pure soul

mine, a star, a sonorous fountain,

with the horror of literature

and mad with twilight and dawn.

From the blue twilight that gives the pattern

that inspires celestial ecstasy,

mist and minor key - the whole flute!,

and Aurora, daughter of the Sun - the whole lyre!

A stone passed by that was launched by a sling;

an arrow passed by that was sharpened by a violent man.

The stone of the sling went to the wave,

and the arrow of hatred went to the wind.

Virtue is in being calm and strong;

with the inner fire everything burns;

if it triumphs over resentment and death,

and towards Bethlehem… the caravan passes!

Song of Hope