Translation:The Black Heralds (1918)/Late Hour

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The Black Heralds (1918)
by César Vallejo, translated from Spanish by Wikisource
Late Hour
César Vallejo1836424The Black Heralds — Late Hour1918Wikisource

     Beloved purity, that my eyes never
will come to enjoy. Absurd purity!

     I know that you were in my flesh one day,
when I threaded still the embryo of life.

     Purity in a drab school skirt;
and blue milk within the soft wheat

     in the evening rain, when the soul
in its withdrawal has crushed the dagger,

     when an insolent stone has crystallized
in some kind of empty test tube.

     When there are happy people; and when
blind eyelides cry on purple guardrails.

     Oh, purity which left me not
even a single note, upon parting from the sad mud

   nor even a crumb of your voice; nor a nerve
of your heroic banquet of stars.

     Go from me, good misdeeds,
sweet sharp mouths...

     I remember her upon seeing you oh, women!
So from life in the perennial evening,
little is born but much dies.