La muerte de Rubén Darío

              by Antonio Machado

 

Si era toda en tu verso la armonía del mundo,
¿dónde fuiste, Darío, la armonía a buscar?
Jardinero de Hesperia, ruiseñor de los mares,
corazón asombrado de la música astral,

¿te ha llevado Dionysos de su mano al infierno
y con las nuevas rosas triunfantes volverás?
¿Te han herido buscando la soñada Florida,
la fuente de la eterna juventud, capitán?

Que en esta lengua madre la clara historia quede;
corazones de todas las Españas, llorad.
Rubén Darío ha muerto en sus tierras de Oro,
esta nueva nos vino atravesando el mar.

Pongamos, españoles, en un severo mármol,
su nombre, flauta y lira, y una inscripción no más:
Nadie esta lira pulse, si no es el mismo Apolo,
nadie esta flauta suene, si no es el mismo Pan.

 

The Death of Rubén Darío

If all the world’s harmony was in your verse,

where did you go, Darío, harmony to seek?

Gardener of Hesperia, nightingale of the seas,

heart at astral music awed,

 

Has Dionysius taken you by the hand to hell

and you’ll return with new triumphal roses?

Were you wounded seeking the dreamed of Florida,

 the fountain of eternal youth, Captain?

 

May the clear history stay in the mother tongue;

Hearts of all the Spains, weep.

Rubén Darío has died in his golden lands,

the news reached us from across the sea.

 

Let us put, Spaniards, in plain marble,

his name, flute and lyre, and inscribe just this:

Let no one this lyre strum, if not Apollo himself,

let no one this flute play, if not Pan himself.

 

 

Translation: Frank Thomas Smith


Rubén Darío (January 18, 1867 – February 6, 1916), was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-American literary movement known as modernismo (modernism) that flourished at the end of the 19th century. Darío has had a great and lasting influence on 20th-century Spanish literature and journalism. He has been praised as the "Prince ofCastilian Letters" and undisputed father of the modernismo literary movement.


Antonio Machado (26 July 1875 – 22 February 1939), was one of Spain's most popular poets and a leading figure of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98.




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