Autumnal

^{translated from the Spanish by Thomas Walsh and Salomón de la Selva}

In the pale afternoon the clouds go by
Aimlessly roving in the quiet sky.
His head between his hands, the dreamer weaves
His dream of clouds and Autumn-colored leaves.
Ah, his intimate sorrow, his long sighs,
And the glad radiance that has dimmed his eyes!
And all the tender glances, the blond tresses,
The rose hands over-brimming with caresses,
The sudden faces smiling everywhere
In the gold-dusted curtains of the air!

In the pale afternoon
A friendly faerie maiden comes to me
And tells me tales of many a secret thing
Fraught with the spell and music of the moon,
And I have learned what wonder the birds sing,
And what the breezes bring over the sea,
All that lies hidden in the mist or gleams,
A floating presence, in a young girl’s dreams.

And once the thirst of infinite desire
Possessed me like a fever, and I said,
“I want to feel all radiance, fragrance, fire
And joy of life within me, to inspire
My soul forever!” And the faerie maid
Called me to follow her, and when she spoke
It was as if a harp to the soft stroke
Of loving hands had wakened suddenly:
She syllabled hope’s language, calling me.

Oh, thirst for the ideal! From the height
Of a great mountain forested with night
She showed me all the stars and told their names;
It was a golden garden wherein grows
The fleur-de-lys of heaven, leaved with flames.
And I cried, “More!” and then the dawn arose.

The dawn came blushing; on her forehead beamed
Delicate splendor, and to me it seemed
A girl that, opening her casement, sees
Her lover watching her, and with surprise
Reddens but cannot hide her from his eyes.

And I cried, “More!” The faerie maiden smiled
And called the flowers, and the flowers were
Lovely and fresh and moist with essences,—
The virgin rose that in the woods grows wild,
The gentle lily tall and shy and fair,
The daisy glad and timid as a child,
Poppies and marigolds, and all the rare
Blossoms that freight with dreams the evening air.

But I cried, “More!” And then the winds brushed by
Bearing the laughter of the world, the cry
Of all glad lovers in the woods of Spring,
And echoes, and all pleasant murmuring
Of rustling leaf or southward-flying bird,
Unworded songs and musics never heard.
The faerie maiden, smiling, led me where
The sky is stretched over the world, above
Our heights and depths of hoping and despair,
Beyond the reach of singing and of love.
And then she tore the veil. And I saw there
That all was dawn. And in the deeps there beamed
A woman’s Face radiant exceedingly.—
Ah, never, Muses, never could ye say
The holy joyance that enkindled me!—
“More? . . .” said the faerie in her laughing way;
But I saw the Face only. And I dreamed.

Autumnal

^{Eros, Vita, Lumen}

    En las pálidas tardes
yerran nubes tranquilas
en el azul; en las ardientes manos
se posan las cabezas pensativas.
¡Ah los suspiros! ¡Ah los dulces sueños!
¡Ah las tristezas íntimas!
¡Ah el polvo de oro que en el aire flota,
tras cuyas ondas trémulas se miran
los ojos tiernos y húmedos,
las bocas inundadas de sonrisas,
las crespas cabelleras
y los dedos de rosa que acarician!

   En las pálidas tardes
me cuenta un hada amiga
las historias secretas
llenas de poesía;
lo que cantan los pájaros,
lo que llevan las brisas,
lo que vaga en las nieblas,
lo que sueñan las niñas.

   Una vez sentí el ansia
de una sed infinita.
Dije al hada amorosa:
—Quiero en el alma mía
tener la inspiración honda, profunda,
inmensa: luz, calor, aroma, vida.
Ella me dijo:—¡Ven! con el acento
con que hablaría un arpa. En él había
un divino aroma de esperanza.
¡Oh sed del ideal!

                       Sobre la cima
de un monté, á media noche,
me mostró las estrellas encendidas.
Era un jardín de oro
con pétalos de llama que titilan.
Exclamé:—Más . . .

                       La aurora
vino después. La aurora sonreía,
con la luz en la frente,
como la joven tímida
que abre la reja, y la sorprenden luego
ciertas curiosas, mágicas pupilas.
Y dije:—Más . . . sonriendo
la celeste hada amiga
prorrumpió:—¡Y bien! ¡Las flores!

                       Y las flores
estaban frescas, lindas,
empapadas de olor: la rosa virgen,
la blanca margarita,
la azucena gentil y las volúbiles
que cuelgan de la rama estremecida.
Y dije:—Más . . .

                       El viento
arrastraba rumores, ecos, risas,
murmullos misteriosos, aleteos,
músicas nunca oídas.
El hada entonces me llevó hasta el velo
que nos cubre las ansias infinitas,
la inspiración profunda
y el alma de las liras.
Y los rasgó. Y allí todo era aurora.
En el fondo se vía
un bello rostro de mujer.

                       ¡Oh; nunca,
   Piérides, diréis las sacras dichas
que en el alma sintiera!
Con su vaga sonrisa:—
—¿Más? . . .—dijo el hada.—Y yo tenía entonces,
clavadas las pupilas
en el azul; y en mis ardientes manos
se posó mi cabeza pensativa . . .

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 1, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

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Thomas Walsh and Salomón de la Selva’s English translation of “Autumnal” appears in Eleven Poems of Rubén Darío (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916), published on the occasion of the death of Rubén Darío. The Spanish original first appeared in Darío’s collection Azul (Imprenta y litografia excelsior, 1888). In “Schopenhauer in Dante’s Garden of Eden: Melancholy and Rubén Darío’s ‘Autumnal,’” published in Comparative Literature, vol. 73, no. 4 (December, 2021), Jason McCloskey, associate professor of Spanish and Spanish department cochair at Bucknell University, writes, “In ‘Autumnal,’ the veil symbolizes the archetypal barrier between the mortal and the immortal, between illusion and reality, marking the limit against which humans cannot trespass and that which separates modern individuals from unity with the rest of the universe. It is the conventional disconnect that esoteric Romanticism strove to overcome so that humans might return to their mythical origins and thereby find true fulfillment and completeness. The fairy grants a rare glimpse into this realm when she tears the veil [. . .]. The fairy has thus led him from the depths of dejection to the height of ecstasy, from the setting sun to the rising sun, and from darkness to light. [. . .] In this way, his plight remains that of the tortured artist who has witnessed the sublime but remains incapable of representing such a transcendent experience in words. Yet the feeling that dominates is one of detached peace [. . .]. At the end, he finds himself back where he started and in the same posture, but he is changed and entranced by it all. The fairy, whose sly grin [. . .] betrays her irony, asks him one last time if he wants more, which elicits no response. He is too absorbed and satisfied even to hear her question. He remains mute and transfixed on the blue of the sky, the eponymous azul of Darío’s text. [. . .] ‘Autumnal’ suggests that the predisposition to melancholy allows one to perceive the inadequacy of the modern world, or to put it another way, to perceive such insufficiency is to be melancholic. Yet the poem also portrays melancholy as a means to salvation, as a way to cut through illusion to attain spiritual fulfillment. It constitutes, moreover, a responsibility, a privilege that must be repaid to society by communicating the special knowledge that melancholy has made accessible.”