Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Rhymes

As one removes iron from a wound, I tore his love from my heart, though I felt as I did it that life was torn away with it!

From the altar I built for him in my soul, Willpower cast his image away, and the light of faith that burned in it before the empty altar went out.

Still disturbing in the night the firm resolve lives in the mind the tenacious vision... When will I be able to sleep with that dream in which dreaming ends!

In the keystone of the crumbling arch whose stones time reddened, the work of a rough chisel stood the Gothic emblem.

Plume of his granite helmet, the ivy hanging around gave shade to the shield in which a hand held a heart.

To contemplate it in the deserted square we both stopped. And, he said, that is the perfect emblem of my constant love.

Oh! and it's true what he told me then: It's true that the heart will carry it in the hand..., anywhere.... but not in the chest.

Sighs are air and go to the air! Tears are water and go to the sea! Tell me, woman: when love is forgotten, do you know where it goes?

First voice

The waves have vague harmony, The violets a soft scent, silver mists of the cold night, light and gold the day, I have something better; I have Love!

Second voice

Aura of applause, radiant cloud, wave of envy that kisses the foot. Island of dreams where the anxious soul rests. Sweet intoxication is Glory!

Third voice

A burning ember is the treasure, a fleeing shadow is vanity. Everything is a lie: glory, gold. What I adore is the only truth; Freedom!

Thus the boatmen passed singing the eternal song and at the stroke of the oar the foam leaped and the sun struck it.

Are you boarding?, they shouted, and I smiling told them as I passed: I have already embarked; as signs that I still have the clothes on the beach laid out to dry.

Tired from the dance, her color flushed, her breath short, leaning on my arm she stopped at one end of the hall.

Among the light gauze that lifted her heaving bosom, a flower swayed in a sweet and rhythmic motion.

As in a cradle of mother-of-pearl pushed by the sea and caressed by the zephyr, it seemed to sleep to the soft lull of her slightly parted lips.

Oh! who could let time slip away like this, I thought! Oh! if flowers sleep, what a sweet dream they must have!

I go against my interest in confessing it; nevertheless, my beloved, I think like you that an ode is only good when written on the back of a banknote. There will be no lack of some fool who, upon hearing it, will cross themselves and say: Woman at the end of the nineteenth century material and prosaic... Nonsense! Voices that make four poets run who in winter wrap themselves with the lyre! Barking of dogs at the moon! You know and I know that in this life, with genius it is very rare the one who writes it, and with gold anyone can make poetry.

Do you want that delicious nectar not to be bittered by its dregs? Then breathe it in, bring it to your lips, and then let it go.

Do you want us to keep a sweet memory of this love? Then let's love each other a lot today and tomorrow let's say goodbye!

Amid the discordant clamor of the orgy, my ear was caressed, like a note of distant music, by the echo of a sigh.

The echo of a sigh I know, formed from a breath I have drunk, perfume of a flower that grows hidden in a dark cloister.

My beloved of a day, affectionate, -What are you thinking about?, she said to me: -In nothing...-In nothing, and you cry?-It's that I have joyful sadness and sad wine.

As in an open book I read in the depths of your pupils. Why pretend with your lips smiles that are contradicted by your eyes?

Cry! Don't be ashamed to confess that you have loved me a little. Cry! No one is watching us. You see; I am a man... and I also cry.

I know a giant and strange hymn that announces in the night of the soul a dawn, and these pages are from that hymn cadences that the air spreads in the shadows.

I would like to write it, taming the rebellious petty language of man, with words that were at once sighs and laughter, colors and notes.

But it is in vain to struggle; there is no figure capable of enclosing it, and hardly, oh, beautiful one!, if having your hands in mine I could sing it to you alone in your ear.

What the savage who with clumsy hand makes of a trunk at his whim a god and then kneels before his work, that we did you and I.

We gave real forms to a phantom, a ridiculous invention of the mind, and once the idol was made, we sacrificed our love on its altar.

In the dark corner of the hall, perhaps forgotten by its owner, silent and covered with dust, the harp could be seen.

How many notes slept in its strings, like the bird sleeps in the branches, waiting for the snow-white hand that knows how to pluck them!

Oh!, I thought; how many times genius thus sleeps at the bottom of the soul, and a voice like Lazarus waits for it to say "Rise and walk"!

Sometimes I find her in the world and she passes by me and passes smiling and I say, how can she laugh?

Then another smile appears on my lips, a mask of pain, and then I think: Perhaps she laughs, as I laugh.

Arrow that flies crossing, thrown at random, and that no one knows where trembling it will land;

leaf that the whirlwind snatches from the dry tree, and that no one can say the furrow where it will return to dust.

Giant wave that the wind curls and pushes in the sea and rolls and passes and it is unknown what beach it is seeking.

Light that in trembling circles shines about to expire, and that no one knows which will be the last of them.

That is me who by chance crosses the world without thinking where I come from or where my steps will take me.

When they told me I felt the cold of a steel blade in my entrails, I leaned against the wall, and for a moment I lost consciousness of where I was.

The night fell on my spirit, in anger and pity the soul was drowned, and it was revealed to me why one cries!, and I understood once why one kills!

The cloud of pain passed..., with difficulty I managed to stammer a few words... and what was I to do? It was a friend who had done me a favor... I thanked him.

I know what the object of your sighs is. I know the cause of your sweet secret languor. Are you laughing...? Someday you will know why: You barely know it and I know it.

I know when you dream, and what you see in dreams; like in a book I can read what you keep silent on your forehead. Are you laughing...? Someday you will know why: You barely know it and I know it.

I know why you smile and cry at the same time. I penetrate the mysterious bosoms of your woman's soul. Are you laughing...? Someday you will know why: while you feel a lot and know nothing, I who feel nothing anymore, know everything.

How beautiful it is to see the day crowned with fire rise, and at its luminous kiss the waves shine and the air ignite!

How beautiful it is after the rain of sad autumn in the bluish afternoon, to drink the perfume of the damp flowers until satiated!

How beautiful it is when in flakes the white snow silently falls, to see the reddish tongues of the restless flames stir!

How beautiful it is when one is sleepy to sleep well... and snore like a chanter... and eat... and get fat... and what a misfortune that this alone is not enough!

How does that rose live that you have pinned next to your heart? On a volcano, until finding it now I have never seen a flower.

Today like yesterday, tomorrow like today and always the same! A gray sky, an eternal horizon and walk..., walk.

Moving in time like a stupid machine the heart; the clumsy intelligence of the brain asleep in a corner.

The soul, which aspires to a paradise, seeking it without faith; fatigue without object, wave that rolls not knowing why.

Voice that incessantly with the same tone sings the same song, drop of monotonous water that falls and falls without ceasing.

Thus the days slip one after another in pursuit, today the same as yesterday, probably tomorrow like today.

Oh!, sometimes I remember sighing the ancient suffering! Bitter is the pain but at least suffering is living!

What is poetry?, you say while you pierce my pupil with your blue pupil. What is poetry!, And you ask me that? Poetry... is you.

For a glance, a world, for a smile, a sky, for a kiss..., I don't know what I would give for a kiss.

Is it true that when sleep touches our eyes with its rose fingers, the spirit flees from the prison it inhabits in a swift flight?

Is it true that, a guest of the mists, at the soft breath of the night breeze, it rises winged to the empty region to meet others?

And there, naked of human form, there the earthly ties broken, for brief hours it inhabits the silent world of the idea?

And it laughs and cries and hates and loves and keeps a trace of pain and joy, similar to the one left when a meteor crosses the sky?

I don't know if that world of visions lives outside or goes inside us: what I know is that I know many people I don't know.

The unfastened clothes, the swords bare, on the golden threshold of the door two angels watched.

I approached the bars that defend the entrance, and from the double grates in the background I saw her confused and white.

I saw her like the image that passes in a dream, like a faint and diffuse ray of light that swims among shadows.

I felt my soul filled with a burning desire; like an abyss attracts, that mystery dragged me towards itself.

But, oh!, that the angels seemed to tell me with their looks: -The threshold of this door only God crosses.

When I look at the blue horizon fading in the distance, through a veil of golden and restless dust, I fancy it possible to tear myself from the miserable ground and float with the golden mist in light atoms like it disintegrated.

When I look at night in the dark depth of the sky the stars tremble like burning pupils of fire, I fancy it possible to where they shine to rise in a flight, and drown in their light, and with them in light ignited to merge in a kiss.

In the sea of doubt in which I row I don't even know what I believe; however, these yearnings tell me that I carry something divine here inside.

You were the hurricane and I the tall tower that defies its power: you had to crash or bring me down! It couldn't be!

You were the ocean and I the upright rock that firmly awaits its sway: you had to break or uproot me! It couldn't be!

Beautiful you, I proud: accustomed one to sweep away, the other to not yield: the path narrow, the clash inevitable... It couldn't be!

The aura that softly moans kisses the light waves that it playfully curls; the sun kisses the cloud in the west and dyes it with purple and gold; the flame around the burning trunk slides to kiss another flame and even the willow bending under its weight returns a kiss to the river that kisses it.

Before you I will die: hidden in my entrails I carry the iron with which your hand opened the wide mortal wound.

Before you I will die: and my spirit, in its tenacious endeavor will sit at the gates of Death, waiting for you to call.

With the hours the days, with the days the years will fly, and to that door you will eventually knock... Who does not knock?

Then when your guilt and your spoils the earth will keep, washing you in the waves of death like in another Jordan.

There, where the murmur of life trembling goes to die, like the wave that comes to the shore silently to expire.

There where the sepulcher that closes opens an eternity, all that we both have kept silent we have to talk about.

Your pupil is blue and when you laugh its soft clarity reminds me of the trembling glow of the morning reflected in the sea.

Your pupil is blue and when you cry the transparent tears in it seem to me like drops of dew on a violet.

Your pupil is blue and if in its depth like a point of light an idea radiates it seems to me in the sky of the afternoon a lost star.

Our passion was a tragic farce in whose absurd fable the comic and the grave confusedly provoke laughter and tears.

But the worst of that story was that at the end of the day she got both tears and laughter and I, only the tears.

When in the night you are enveloped by the tulle wings of sleep and your extended eyelashes resemble ebony arches, to listen to the beats of your restless heart and recline your sleeping head on my chest, I would give, my soul, all I possess, the light, the air, and the thought!

When your eyes are fixed on an invisible object and your lips are illuminated by the reflection of a smile, to read on your forehead the silent thought that passes like the cloud over the wide mirror of the sea, I would give, my soul, all I desire, fame, gold, glory, genius!

When your tongue is silent and your breath quickens, and your cheeks flush and you half-close your black eyes, to see between their lashes the moist fire sparkle the ardent spark that springs from the volcano of desires, I would give, my soul, for all I hope, faith, spirit, earth, heaven.

I am the burning cloud that waves at sunset, I am the luminous trail of the wandering star.

I am snow on the peaks, I am fire on the sands, blue wave in the seas and foam on the shores.

In the lute I am a note, perfume in the violet, fleeting flame in the tombs and ivy in the ruins.

I thunder in the torrent and whistle in the lightning and blind in the flash and roar in the storm.

I laugh in the hills, whisper in the tall grass, sigh in the pure wave and cry in the dry leaf.

I undulate with the atoms of the smoke that rises and slowly climbs to the sky in an immense spiral.

I in the golden threads that the insects hang sway among the trees in the scorching siesta.

I run after the nymphs that in the fresh stream of the crystal-clear brook play naked.

I in coral forests carpeted with white pearls, pursue in the ocean the light nymphs.

I in the concave caverns where the sun never penetrates, mingling with the gnomes contemplate their riches.

I seek the erased traces of the centuries and know of those empires of which not even the name remains.

I follow in a rapid whirl the worlds that spin, and my pupil encompasses the entire creation.

I know of those regions where a sound does not reach, and where formless stars await a breath of life.

I am over the abyss the bridge that crosses, I am the unknown ladder that unites heaven and earth.

I am the invisible ring that binds the world of form to the world of idea.

I am finally that spirit, unknown essence, mysterious perfume of which the poet is the vessel.

Like a swarm of angry bees, from a dark corner of memory the memories of past hours come out to pursue me.

I want to drive them away. Useless effort! They surround me, they harass me, and one after another they come to pierce me with the sharp sting that festers the soul.

It's a matter of words and yet neither you nor I will ever, after all that's happened, agree on where the fault lies.

It's a pity that Love doesn't have a dictionary where to find when pride is simply pride and when it is dignity!

Of the little life I have left I would gladly give the best years, to know what others have said about me.

Awake I tremble to look at you, asleep I dare to see you; that's why, soul of my soul, I watch while you sleep.

Awake you laugh and when you laugh your lips seem to me like flashes of crimson that snake over a sky of snow.

Asleep, the corners of your mouth fold in a slight smile, soft as the luminous trail left by a dying sun.

Sleep!

Awake you look and when you look, your eyes shine wet, like the blue wave on whose crest the sun sparkles.

Through your eyelids asleep, they pour a calm glow, like a tempered ray of light from a transparent lamp.

Sleep!

Awake you speak and when you speak, your words seem like a rain of pearls pouring into a golden cup.

Asleep in the murmur of your breath rhythmic and soft I hear a poem that my enamored soul understands.

Sleep!

On my heart I placed my hand so that its beat would not sound and disturb the solemn calm of the night.

From your balcony I have already closed the shutters so that the annoying glare of dawn does not enter and wake you.

Sleep!

Like the miser guards his treasure, I guarded my pain; I wanted to prove to her who swore eternal love to me that there is something eternal.

But today I call it in vain and hear time say as it ends, "Ah, miserable clay, eternally you will not even be able to suffer!"

She crosses silently and her movements are silent harmony; her steps sound and when they sound they recall the rhythmic cadence of the winged hymn.

Her eyes half-open, those eyes as clear as day, and the earth and the sky, everything they encompass, burn with new light in her pupils.

She laughs, and her laughter has notes of the fleeting water; she cries, and each tear is a poem of infinite tenderness.

She has the light, she has the perfume, the color and the line, the form engendering desires, the expression, eternal source of poetry.

What is stupid? Bah! As long as she silently keeps the enigma, what I believe she keeps will always be worth more than what anyone else tells me.

Her hand in my hands, her eyes in my eyes, her loving head resting on my shoulder, God knows how many times with lazy steps we have wandered together under the tall elms that lend mystery and shadow to her house's porch. And yesterday..., barely a year, passed like a breath, with what exquisite grace, with what admirable composure, she said when an officious friend introduced us: "I think I have seen you somewhere" Oh, fools, who are the salons' comadres of good tone and went there hunting for gallant intrigues; what a story you have lost, what a tasty dish to be devoured sotto voce in a circle behind the fan of feathers and gold! (...) Discreet and chaste moon, tall and leafy elms, walls of her house, thresholds of her porch, keep silent and let the secret not leave you! Keep silent; for my part I have forgotten everything: and she..., she, there is no mask like her face.

Where do I come from...? The most horrible and rough of paths seek, the footprints of bloodied feet on the hard rock, the remnants of a soul torn to shreds in the sharp brambles, will tell you the way that leads to my cradle.

Where am I going? The darkest and saddest of wastelands crosses, valley of eternal snows and eternal melancholic mists. Where there is a solitary stone without any inscription, where oblivion dwells, there will be my tomb.

Of this mortal life and the eternal what is due to me, if anything is due, to know what you have thought of me alone.

They closed her eyes that were still open, covered her face with a white cloth, and some sobbing, others in silence, all left the sad room.

The light that burned in a glass on the floor cast the shadow of the bed on the wall, and among that shadow at intervals the rigid form of the body could be seen.

The day was breaking and at its first light with its thousand noises the town was waking. Before that contrast of life and mystery, of light and shadows, I thought for a moment:

My God, how alone the dead are left!

From the house, on shoulders, they carried her to the temple, and in a chapel they left the coffin. There they surrounded her pale remains with yellow candles and black drapes.

At the tolling of the Souls the last prayer was finished by an old woman, she crossed the wide nave, the doors groaned and the holy precinct was left deserted.

From a clock the pendulum's rhythm was heard and from some candles the crackling. So fearful and sad, so dark and still everything was found that I thought for a moment:

My God, how alone the dead are left!

From the high bell the iron tongue gave its mournful farewell toll. In mourning clothes, friends and relatives crossed in line forming the procession.

From the last refuge, dark and narrow, the pickaxe opened the niche at one end; there they laid her, they walled her in, and with a salute the funeral parted.

The gravedigger, the pickaxe on his shoulder, singing under his breath, disappeared in the distance. The night was coming in, the sun had set: lost in the shadows I thought for a moment:

My God, how alone the dead are left!

In the long nights of the icy winter, when the wind makes the timbers creak and the strong rain lashes the windows, sometimes I remember the poor girl.

There the rain falls with an eternal sound; there the north wind fights her. From the damp wall stretched in the hollow, perhaps from the cold her bones freeze... (...)

Does the dust return to dust? Does the soul fly to heaven? Is everything, without spirit, decay and mud? I don't know; but there is something I can't explain, something that repels though it must be done to leave the dead so sad, so alone.

I saw you for a moment and floating before my eyes the image of your eyes remained, like the dark stain rimmed with fire that floats and blinds if one looks at the sun.

And wherever I cast my gaze I see your pupils flame again; and I don't find you, it's not your gaze, just your eyes, nothing more.

From the corner of my room I see them detached fantastically shining: when I sleep I feel them hovering wide open over me.

I know there are will-o'-the-wisps that at night lead the traveler to perish: I feel dragged by your eyes, but where they drag me I do not know.

She passed overwhelming in her beauty and I let her pass; I didn't even turn to look at her, and yet, something murmured in my ear: "that's her".

Who joined the afternoon to the morning? I don't know; I only know that in one short summer night the twilights united, and... "it was."

In the imposing nave of the Byzantine temple, I saw the Gothic tomb in the dim light that trembled in the stained glass windows.

Hands on her chest, and in her hands a book, a beautiful woman lay on the urn of the chisel's prodigy.

From the abandoned body's sweet weight sunk, as if of soft feather and satin her granite bed folded.

The divine glow of the last smile kept her face, like the sky keeps the fugitive ray of the dying sun.

From the stone headrest sitting on the edge, two angels, finger on their lips, imposed silence in the chamber.

She didn't seem dead; from the massive arches she seemed to sleep in the half-light and that in dreams she saw paradise.

I approached from the nave to the dark corner, with the silent step that one approaches a child's cradle where it sleeps.

I contemplated her for a moment and that warm glow, that stone bed that offered near the wall another empty place,

in the soul revived the thirst for the infinite, the longing for that life of death, for which an instant are the centuries... (...)

Tired of the battle in which I live fighting, sometimes I remember with envy that dark and hidden corner.

Of that mute and pale woman I remember and say: Oh, what a silent love is death's! What a peaceful sleep is the grave's!

Why do you tell me? I know: she is changeable, she is haughty and vain and capricious: before the feeling of her soul the water of the sterile rock would spring.

I know that in her heart, nest of serpents, there is not a fiber that responds to love; that she is an inanimate statue...; but... she is so beautiful!

She wasn't asleep; she wandered in that limbo where objects change form, mysterious spaces that separate wakefulness from sleep.

The ideas that in silent round circled around my brain, little by little in their dance moved with a slower rhythm.

From the light that enters the soul through the eyes the eyelids veiled the reflection; but another light illuminated the world of visions from within.

At this point a sound resonated in my ear similar to that which in the temple wanders confused when the faithful end their prayers with an amen.

And I heard a thin and sad voice that called me by name from afar, and I smelled the scent of extinguished candles, of moisture and incense. (...)

The night passed and in the arms of oblivion I fell like a stone into its deep bosom. Yet upon waking I exclaimed: "Someone I loved has died!"

She has wounded me hiding in the shadows, sealing her betrayal with a kiss. She threw her arms around my neck and from behind cold-bloodedly broke my heart.

And she impassively continues her path, happy, smiling, impassive, and why? Because no blood flows from the wound... Because the dead stands.

Your forgetfulness didn't surprise me! Although for a day your affection surprised me much more, because what is in me that is worth something, that..., you couldn't even suspect.

Because, girl, your eyes are green like the sea you complain; green are the naiads', green was Minerva's, and green are the pupils of the Prophet's houris.

Green is the gala and ornament of the forest in spring. Among its seven colors the brilliant iris displays it. Emeralds are green, green the color of hope and the ocean waves and the poets' laurel.

Your early cheek is a rose covered with frost, in which the carmine of the petals is seen through the pearls. And yet, I know you complain, because you think your eyes make you ugly: well, don't believe it. For your pupils seem, moist, green and restless, early almond leaves that tremble in the breeze.

Your mouth of rubies is a purplish open pomegranate that in summer invites to quench thirst with it. And yet, I know you complain because you think your eyes make you ugly: well, don't believe it. For they seem, if angry your pupils sparkle, the waves of the sea breaking on the Cantabrian rocks.

Your forehead crowned with curly gold in a wide braid, snowy summit where the day reflects its last light. And yet, I know you complain because you think your eyes make you ugly: well, don't believe it. For, among the blond lashes, next to the temples, they resemble emerald and gold brooches that hold a white ermine.

Because, girl, your eyes are green like the sea you complain; perhaps if they turned black or blue you would regret it.

This frame of bones and skin from carrying a crazy head is finally tired and I don't find it strange because, although it's true that I'm not old,

of the part of life that is my share in the life of the world, to my detriment I have made such use, that I would swear I have condensed a century into each day.

Thus, even if I died now, I couldn't say I haven't lived; that the garment, seemingly new on the outside, I know that inside it has aged.

It has aged, yes; despite my star!, my painful eagerness already says it enough; that there is pain that, when passing, leaves its horrible mark engraved in the heart, if not on the forehead.

Two red tongues of fire that entwined to the same trunk approach, and when they kiss form a single flame.

Two notes that from the lute at the same time the hand plucks, and in space they meet and harmoniously embrace.

Two waves that come together to die on a beach and when they break they crown with a silver plume.

Two wisps of vapor that rise from the lake, and when they meet in the sky form a white cloud.

Two ideas that sprout at the same time, two kisses that explode at the same time, two echoes that merge, that's what our two souls are.

I left the light aside and on the edge of the disheveled bed I sat, mute, somber, my gaze fixed on the wall.

How long was I like that? I don't know: when the horrible intoxication of pain left me, the light was dying and the sun was laughing on my balconies.

Nor do I know in such terrible hours what I thought or what happened to me; I only remember that I cried and cursed, and that that night I grew old.

Giant waves that break roaring on the deserted and remote beaches, wrapped in the sheet of foam, take me with you!

Hurricane gusts that snatch the withered leaves from the tall forest, dragged in the blind whirlwind, take me with you!

Storm clouds that the lightning breaks and in fire ignite the bloody edges, snatched in the dark mist, take me with you!

Take me out of pity to where the vertigo with reason tears away my memory. Out of pity!, I'm afraid of being left alone with my pain!

When we turn the fleeting hours of the past to evoke, trembling shines in her black lashes a tear ready to slip.

And finally it slips and falls like a drop of dew when thinking that like today for yesterday, for today tomorrow we will both sigh again.

Know if ever your red lips burn with an invisible scorching atmosphere, that the soul that can speak with the eyes can also kiss with the gaze.

But those that restrained their flight to contemplate your beauty and my happiness, those that learned our names.... those... will not return!

But those filled with dew whose drops we watched tremble and fall like tears of the day.... those... will not return!

But mute and absorbed and on my knees as one worships God before his altar, as I have loved you..., disillusion yourself, like that... they will not love you!

Don't say that exhausted its treasure, for lack of subjects, the lyre has fallen silent; there may not be poets; but there will always be poetry.

As long as the waves of light pulse ignited at the kiss, as long as the sun dresses the torn clouds in fire and gold, as long as the air carries perfumes and harmonies in its bosom, as long as there is spring in the world, there will be poetry!

As long as human science does not discover the sources of life, and in the sea or in the sky there is an abyss that resists calculation, as long as humanity always advancing does not know where it is going, as long as there is a mystery for man, there will be poetry!

As long as one feels that the soul laughs, without the lips laughing; as long as one cries, without tears coming to cloud the pupil; as long as the heart and the head continue battling, as long as there are hopes and memories, there will be poetry!

As long as there are eyes that reflect the eyes that look at them, as long as the lip responds sighing to the lip that sighs, as long as two souls can be felt in a kiss, as long as there is a beautiful woman, there will be poetry!

A tear appeared in her eyes and a phrase of forgiveness on my lips; pride spoke and she wiped her tears and the phrase expired on my lips.

I go one way: she goes another; but when thinking of our mutual love, I still say, why did I remain silent that day? And she will say, why didn't I cry?

My life is a wasteland, flower that I touch withers; that in my fatal path someone goes sowing evil for me to reap.

Strange shaking that agitates ideas like a hurricane that pushes the waves in a rush.

Murmur that rises in the soul and grows like a silent volcano announcing it will erupt.

Deformed silhouettes of impossible beings, landscapes that appear like through a veil.

Colors that blend mimicking in the air the atoms of the iris that swim in the light.

Ideas without words, words without meaning; cadences that have neither rhythm nor measure.

Memories and desires of things that do not exist; fits of joy, impulses to cry.

Nervous activity that finds nothing to employ itself; without reins to guide it flying horse.

Madness that exalts and weakens the spirit; divine intoxication of the creative genius.

Such is inspiration. Giant voice that orders chaos in the brain and makes light appear among the shadows.

Brilliant golden rein that powerfully reins in the flying steed of the exalted mind.

Thread of light that in bundles ties thoughts, sun that breaks the clouds and touches the zenith.

Intelligent hand that in a pearl necklace manages to gather the unruly words.

Harmonious rhythm that with cadence and number encloses the fleeting notes in the measure.

Chisel that bites the block modeling the statue, and adds plastic beauty to the ideal.

Atmosphere in which ideas revolve with order, like atoms grouped by hidden attraction.

Torrent in whose waves fever quenches its thirst, rest in which the spirit regains its vigor.

Such is our reason. Always in struggle with both and victorious over both, only to genius is it given to bind them both to a yoke.

If when rocking the blue bellflowers of your balcony you think that the murmuring wind sighs as it passes, know that hidden among the green leaves I sigh.

If when a vague sound resonates behind you you think that a distant voice has called your name, know that among the shadows that surround you I call you.

If in the high night your heart is fearfully troubled, feeling a burning breath on your lips, know that, although invisible, next to you I breathe.

You say you have a heart, and you only say it because you feel its beats; that's not a heart..., it's a machine that moves with a rhythm that makes noise.

Seeing my feverish hours and insomnia slowly pass, by the side of my bed, who will sit?

When the trembling hand extends near to expire seeking a friendly hand, who will clasp it?

When death glazes the crystal of my eyes, my eyelids still open, who will close them?

When the bell tolls (if it tolls at my funeral), a prayer upon hearing it, who will murmur?

When my pale remains the earth already oppresses, over the forgotten grave. Who will come to cry?

Who finally the next day, when the sun shines again, of my passing through the world, who will remember?

The invisible atoms of the air palpitate and ignite around, the sky dissolves in rays of gold, the earth trembles with joy. I hear floating in waves of harmonies the sound of kisses and the beating of wings; my eyelids close... What happens? Tell me...? Silence! It's love passing by!

Night came and I found no shelter, and I was thirsty...!, I drank my tears; and I was hungry! My swollen eyes I closed to die!

Was I in a desert? Although to my ear the hoarse boil of the crowds reached, I was orphaned and poor... The world was deserted... for me!

Feigning realities with vain shadow, before Desire Hope goes.

And its lies like the Phoenix are reborn from its ashes.

At the flash of a lightning bolt we are born and its glow still lasts when we die; life is so short.

Glory and Love after which we run are shadows of a dream we pursue; waking up is dying.

Today the earth and the heavens smile at me, today the sun reaches the depths of my soul, today I saw her..., I saw her and she looked at me.... today I believe in God!

-I am ardent, I am dark, I am the symbol of passion, my soul is full of yearning for pleasures. Are you looking for me? -It's not you; no.

-My forehead is pale, my braids of gold, I can offer you endless happiness. I keep a treasure of tenderness. Are you calling me? -No; it's not you.

-I am a dream, an impossible, a vain phantom of mist and light; I am incorporeal, I am intangible: I cannot love you. -Oh, come; come you!

When you incline your melancholy forehead on your chest you seem to me like a broken lily.

Because in giving you the purity of which it is a celestial symbol, like it God made you of gold and snow.

The mouth kissed me all trembling

On her lap she had the open book, her black curls touched my cheek: neither of us saw the letters, I think, and yet we kept deep silence.

How long did it last? Not even then could I know. I only know that nothing was heard but the breath, that hurriedly escaped from the dry lip. I only know that we both turned at the same time and our eyes met and a kiss sounded. (...)

Dante's creation was the book, it was his Hell.

When we lowered our eyes to it I said trembling: Do you understand now that a poem fits in a verse? And she answered blushing: I understand now!

If of our grievances in a book the story were written and in our souls everything that was erased in its pages were erased;

I still love you so much; your love left such deep marks in my heart, that only if you erased one I would erase them all!

A woman has poisoned my soul, another woman has poisoned my body; neither of them came looking for me, I don't complain about either of them.

As the world is round, the world rolls. If tomorrow, rolling, this poison poisons in turn, why accuse me? Can I give more than what was given to me?

First it is a trembling and vague dawn, a restless ray of light that cuts the sea; then it sparkles and grows and spreads in a giant explosion of clarity.

The sparkling light is joy; the fearful shadow is sorrow: Oh!, in the dark night of my soul, when will it dawn?

Like the breeze that refreshes the blood over the dark battlefield, loaded with perfumes and harmonies it wanders in the silence of the night.

Symbol of pain and tenderness, of the English bard in the horrible drama sweet Ophelia, her reason lost, picking flowers and singing she passes.

When among the dark shadow a lost voice murmurs disturbing its sad calm, if in the depth of my soul I hear it sweetly resonate,

tell me: is it that the wind in its turns complains, or that your sighs speak to me of love as they pass?

When the sun in my window shines red in the morning and my love evokes your shadow, if in my mouth from another mouth I believe I feel the impression,

tell me: is it that blindly I rave, or that a kiss in a sigh your heart sends me?

And in the luminous day and in the high dark night, if in everything that surrounds the soul that desires you I believe I feel and see you,

tell me: is it that I touch and breathe dreaming, or that in a sigh you give me your breath to drink?

How many times at the foot of the mossy walls that guard her I heard the bell that at midnight calls to matins!

How many times did my silhouette trace the silver moon, next to the cypress that from her orchard peeks over the walls!

When in shadows the church was wrapped, from its latticed ogive, how many times did I see the glow of the lamp tremble on the glass!

Although the wind in the dark corners of the tower whistled, among the voices of the choir I perceived her vibrant and clear voice.

In the winter nights, if a fearful one dared to cross the deserted square, upon seeing me, they quickened their step.

And there was no lack of an old woman who in the morning said at the turn that of some dead sacristan in sin I was the soul.

In the dark I knew the corners of the atrium and the portal; of my feet the nettles that grow there perhaps keep the footprints.

The owls, frightened, followed me with their flame eyes, came to look at me over time as a good comrade.

By my side without fear the reptiles moved crawling; even the mute granite saints I believe greeted me!

Floating veil of light mist, ruffled ribbon of white foam, sonorous murmur of golden harp, kiss of the aura, wave of light, that is you.

You, airy shadow, that as many times as I go to touch you you vanish. Like the flame, like the sound, like the mist, like the moan of the blue lake.

In a shoreless sea sounding wave, in the void wandering comet, long lament of the hoarse wind, perpetual longing for something better, that is me.

I, who to your eyes in my agony turn my eyes day and night; I, who tirelessly run and madly after a shadow, after the ardent daughter of a vision!

I don't know what I dreamed last night. Sad, very sad must have been the dream because awake, the anguish lasted.

I noticed when I sat up the pillow was wet and for the first time I felt, upon noticing it, my soul fill with a bitter pleasure.

Sad thing is the dream that makes us cry, but in my sadness I have a joy... I know I still have tears!

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