Translation:The Black Heralds (1918)/Beneath the Poplars

by César Vallejo

For Jose Garrido

Like inscrutable imprisoned bards,
the poplars of blood have fallen asleep.
The flocks of Bethlehem on the hillocks
ruminate arias of grass to the fallen sun.

The ancient pastor, shivering
at the final agonies of the light,
in his paschal eyes he has gathered,
a chaste cluster of stars.

        Marked by his years as an orphan, he descends the moment
with rumors of a burial, to the kneeling field;
and the little bells autumn-ify with shadows.

The blue warped into iron survives,
and in it, with shrouded pupils,
a dog lashes out its pastoral howl.