Poetry - Manuel Gonzalez Prada and Adolfo Bécquer - Alexis Levitin

Triolet by Manuel Gonzalez Prada translated Rhina P. Espaillat

 

 

Whatever joys might crown this life of ours

will either fail to come or come too late.

They shine in flight, like all that time devours,

whatever joys might crown this life of ours.

Unlucky man who in the time of flowers

puts off the plucking for another date!

Whatever joys might crown this life of ours

will either fail to come or come too late.

 

 

 

(from Rimas)  VII by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer translated by Rhina P. Espaillat

 

 

In a dark corner of the vacant hall,

perhaps forgotten by the owner’s hands,

silent and covered in a pall of dust,

there the harp stands.

 

How many notes were sleeping in its strings—

as a bird sleeps on a branch high in the tree—

awaiting the snowy hand whose touch knows how

to set them free!

 

And oh, I thought, how often genius sleeps

in the soul’s depths, awaiting there, just so,

like Lazarus, the coming of a voice

calling it forth with an Arise, and go! 

 

 

 

(from Rimas)  XLI by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer translated by Rhina P. Espaillat 

 

 

You were the hurricane, and I the tall

tower defying your power over me:

you had to break in vain or beat me down...

It could not be!

 

You were the ocean, I the coastal rock

entrenched against the onslaughts of the sea:

you had to shatter, or dislodge my hold...

It could not be!

 

How beautiful you were; and I, how proud:

one bent on conquest, one on keeping free:

the path so narrow, how avoid the clash...

It could not be!