Antonio Machado ( 1875 -1939) Spain

There is a tower in the plaza

There is a tower in the plaza,
In the tower there's a balcony,
In the balcony there's a lady,
A lady, a white flower.
There passed a young man.
-Does anyone knows why?-,
And he carried the plaza,
With its tower, its balcony,
With its balcony, its lady,
His lady and his white flower.

*****

La plaza tiene una torre

La plaza tiene una torre,
la torre tiene un balcón,
el balcón tiene una dama,
la dama una blanca flor.
Ha pasado un caballero
- ¡quién sabe por qué pasó! -,
y se ha llevado la plaza
con su torre y su balcón,
con su balcón y su dama,
su dama y su blanca flor.
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Memory from Childhood

A cloudy and chilly afternoon
In winter .The students
Are studying. Monotony
Of rain against the window panes.
In the class room. In a poster
Cain is shown running
And Abel, dead
Next to a blotch of red.
In a sonorous and husky voice
The teacher is thundering, an old man
Badly dressed, withered and dry,
Carrying a book in his hand.
And the whole choir of children
Is singing the lesson:
“One thousand times one hundred is one hundred thousand,
One thousand times one thousand is one million.”
A cloudy and chilly
Winter afternoon. The students
Are studying. Monotony
Of rain against the window pains.

*****

Recuerdo lnfantil

Una tarde parda y fria
de invierno. Los colegiales
estudian. Monotonia
de lluvia tras los cristales.
Es la clase. En un cartel
se representa a Cain
fugitivo, y muerto Abel,
junto a una mancha carmin.
Con timbre sonoro y hueco
truena el maestro, un anciano
mal vestido, enjuto y seco,
que lleva un libro en la mano.
Y todo un coro infantil
va cantando la lección:
“Mil veces ciento, cien mil,
mil veces mil, un millión.”
Una tarde parda y fr’a
de invierno. Los colegiales
estudian. . Monotonia
de lluvia tras los cristales.

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Poem LXXIX

The land is naked,
And the soul howls at the pale horizon
Like a hungry she-wolf. Poet,
What are you searching in the sunset?
Bitter to walk, because the road
Weighs heavy on the heart. The wind is frozen,
The night has arrived, and the bitterness
Of the distance!…On the white road

Some green trees are turning black;
In the distant mountains
There is gold and blood…The sun has died. Poet,
What are you searching in the sunset.

Note: First draft. Needs corrections.

*****

LXXIX

Desnuda está la tierra,
y el alma aúlla al horizonte pálido
como loba famélica. Qué buscas,
poeta, en el ocaso?

Amargo caminar, porque el camino
pesa en el corazón. El viento helado,
y la noche que llega, y la amargura
de la distancia!... En el camino blanco

algunos yertos árboles negrean;
en los montes lejanos
hay oro y sangre... El sol murió... Qué buscas,
poeta, en el ocaso?
posted by Tanzan Kopra