Of What Country




Of what country are you,
Asleep between realities like parched mouths,
Life of incited dreams,
And the mourning that you exhibit by the avenue
      of monuments,
Where forgotten gods and goddesses
Raise non-existent arms or marble glances.

The old woman spins in her ashen garden;
Patio walls, marshes, crepuscular howls,
Ivy, cambric, there they hardened,
Watching those fugitive wheels
At which the clay raised a menacing fist.

The country is a name;
It is your equal, newly born, you come
From the north, the south, the fog, the lights;
Your destiny will be to listen to what they say
The shadows inclined toward the cradle.

One hand will give the power of the smile,
Another will give spiteful tears,
Another the experienced knife,
Another the desire that corrupts, forming beneath life
A lake of pallid things,
Where serpents surge, water lilies, insects, maladies,
Tainting the lips, the most pure.

You will not be able to kiss with innocence,
Nor to live such realities you cry with inexhaustible
      tongue.
Let go, let go, tattered in rags of stars;
You will die in good time.



Luis Cernuda