Read Online Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish Edition) by Antonio Machado - Free Book Online
Authors: Antonio Machado
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{recuerdos de su hermano José),
Madrid: Forma Ediciones, 1977, p. 159. In 1962, in Madrid, the Spanish poet José Bergamín told me this story: One evening during the civil war, Manuel Azaña, president of Spain, had a party in the parliament attended by the leading political figures. Bergamín and Machado were also there. Azaña spent most of the evening chatting with the two poets. When the poets left, on the way down the stairs, Don Antonio said to Bergamín,
“Pobre de Azaña que tiene que ser presidente de la república, cuando mi sueño siempre era de ser portero del palacio”:
Poor Azaña who has to be president of the republic, when my dream was always to be doorkeeper of the palace.
17 The third fragment on Machado’s page is a revision from an earlier published poem to Guiomar. See Jacques Issorel,
Collioure 1939, Les dernier jours d’Antonio Machado
(Perpignan 1982: p.96).
18 Machado, Antonio,
Obras: Poesía y prosa,
p. 16.
Note on the Poems
Many of the latter poems of Antonio Machado are interwoven among his prose writings, often attributed to his
heterónimas,
Abel Martin and Juan de Mairena. When he is anthologized, sometimes the prose context is included. Readers are most often confused by the delightful and whimsical settings, unable to locate the poem. In the normal Spanish editions of
Complete Poems,
the poems found among his prose works are omitted altogether and one must find them in the
Juan de Mairena, Abel Martin,
and
The Complementaries
volumes. Here, the poems alone, not their prose frame, are given, and their place in the prose writings is always cited; the poems of his personae are indicated in the subtitle. When a poem does not have a title, I have used the first line to identify the poem. In a few instances, the poet puts two poems together (as Baudelaire had the habit of doing), separated by a line of dots. In notable instances such as “Glossing Ronsard,” “Songs to Guio mar,” and “Sonnets,” Machado often placed sonnets under one title. These sonnets are sometimes related, but they are not a sequence and are to be taken as separate sonnets.
—WB.
Solitudes, Galleries and Other Poems
Soledades, gallerías y otras poemas
(1899–1907)
Solitudes /
Solidades
El viajero
Está en la sala familiar, sombría,
y entre nosotros, el querido hermano
que en el sueño infantil de un claro día
vimos partir hacia un país lejano.
Hoy tiene ya las sienes plateadas,
un gris mechón sobre la angosta frente;
y la fría inquietud de sus miradas
revela un alma casi toda ausente.
Deshójanse las copas otoñales
del parque mustio y viejo.
La tarde, tras los húmedos cristales,
se pinta, y en el fondo del espejo.
El rostro del hermano se ilumina
suavemente. ¿Floridos desengaños
dorados por la tarde que declina?
¿Ansias de vida nueva en nuevos años?
¿Lamentará la juventud perdida?
Lejos quedó—la pobre loba—muerta.
¿La blanca juventud nunca vivida
teme, que la de cantar ante su puerta?
¿Sonríe el sol de oro
de la tierra de un sueño no encontrada;
y ve su nave hender el mar sonoro,
de viento y luz la blanca vela hinchada?
El la visto las hojas otoñales,
amarillas, rodar, las olorosas
ramas del eucalipto, los rosales
que enseñan otra vez sus blancas rosas...
Y este dolor que añora o desconfía
el temblor de una lágrima reprime,
y un resto de viril hipocresía
en el semblante pálido se imprime.
Serio retrato en la pared clarea
todavía. Nosotros divagamos.
En la tristeza del hogar golpea
el tictac del reloj. Todos callamos.
The Voyager
He is among us in the gloom
of the family den. The brother we loved.
One day of sun in childhood dream
we saw him leave for a far land.
His temples have gone silver,
gray hair over a pinched forehead.
The icy worry of his gaze
reveals a soul almost in limbo.
In the old melancholy park
leaves spin out of autumn treetops.
Behind the steaming windowpanes
afternoon is painted in the deep
Madrid: Forma Ediciones, 1977, p. 159. In 1962, in Madrid, the Spanish poet José Bergamín told me this story: One evening during the civil war, Manuel Azaña, president of Spain, had a party in the parliament attended by the leading political figures. Bergamín and Machado were also there. Azaña spent most of the evening chatting with the two poets. When the poets left, on the way down the stairs, Don Antonio said to Bergamín,
“Pobre de Azaña que tiene que ser presidente de la república, cuando mi sueño siempre era de ser portero del palacio”:
Poor Azaña who has to be president of the republic, when my dream was always to be doorkeeper of the palace.
17 The third fragment on Machado’s page is a revision from an earlier published poem to Guiomar. See Jacques Issorel,
Collioure 1939, Les dernier jours d’Antonio Machado
(Perpignan 1982: p.96).
18 Machado, Antonio,
Obras: Poesía y prosa,
p. 16.
Note on the Poems
Many of the latter poems of Antonio Machado are interwoven among his prose writings, often attributed to his
heterónimas,
Abel Martin and Juan de Mairena. When he is anthologized, sometimes the prose context is included. Readers are most often confused by the delightful and whimsical settings, unable to locate the poem. In the normal Spanish editions of
Complete Poems,
the poems found among his prose works are omitted altogether and one must find them in the
Juan de Mairena, Abel Martin,
and
The Complementaries
volumes. Here, the poems alone, not their prose frame, are given, and their place in the prose writings is always cited; the poems of his personae are indicated in the subtitle. When a poem does not have a title, I have used the first line to identify the poem. In a few instances, the poet puts two poems together (as Baudelaire had the habit of doing), separated by a line of dots. In notable instances such as “Glossing Ronsard,” “Songs to Guio mar,” and “Sonnets,” Machado often placed sonnets under one title. These sonnets are sometimes related, but they are not a sequence and are to be taken as separate sonnets.
—WB.
Solitudes, Galleries and Other Poems
Soledades, gallerías y otras poemas
(1899–1907)
Solitudes /
Solidades
El viajero
Está en la sala familiar, sombría,
y entre nosotros, el querido hermano
que en el sueño infantil de un claro día
vimos partir hacia un país lejano.
Hoy tiene ya las sienes plateadas,
un gris mechón sobre la angosta frente;
y la fría inquietud de sus miradas
revela un alma casi toda ausente.
Deshójanse las copas otoñales
del parque mustio y viejo.
La tarde, tras los húmedos cristales,
se pinta, y en el fondo del espejo.
El rostro del hermano se ilumina
suavemente. ¿Floridos desengaños
dorados por la tarde que declina?
¿Ansias de vida nueva en nuevos años?
¿Lamentará la juventud perdida?
Lejos quedó—la pobre loba—muerta.
¿La blanca juventud nunca vivida
teme, que la de cantar ante su puerta?
¿Sonríe el sol de oro
de la tierra de un sueño no encontrada;
y ve su nave hender el mar sonoro,
de viento y luz la blanca vela hinchada?
El la visto las hojas otoñales,
amarillas, rodar, las olorosas
ramas del eucalipto, los rosales
que enseñan otra vez sus blancas rosas...
Y este dolor que añora o desconfía
el temblor de una lágrima reprime,
y un resto de viril hipocresía
en el semblante pálido se imprime.
Serio retrato en la pared clarea
todavía. Nosotros divagamos.
En la tristeza del hogar golpea
el tictac del reloj. Todos callamos.
The Voyager
He is among us in the gloom
of the family den. The brother we loved.
One day of sun in childhood dream
we saw him leave for a far land.
His temples have gone silver,
gray hair over a pinched forehead.
The icy worry of his gaze
reveals a soul almost in limbo.
In the old melancholy park
leaves spin out of autumn treetops.
Behind the steaming windowpanes
afternoon is painted in the deep
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