Points Favorite Poets

Antonio Machado, Spain

‘Y ha de morir contigo el mundo mago

And is that magical world to die with you,
where memory goes guarding
life’s purest breaths
first love’s white shadow,

the voice that entered your heart, the hand
that you had wished to hold in dream,
and all things loved
that touched the soul, the depths of sky?

And is that world of yours to die with you,
the old life you renewed and set in order?
Have the anvils and crucibles of your spirit
laboured here only for dust and wind?

LII: Meditation

Now the moon goes climbing
over the orange grove.
And Venus is shining
like a glass dove.

Amber and beryl
beyond the far mountain,
and over the calm ocean
sky of porcelain, purple.

Now it’s night in the garden
– about its tasks goes water!
and only the scent of jasmine,
the nightingale of odours.

From ocean to ocean
How silent it seems, the war,
while Valencia blossoms
drinking the Guadalviar!

Valencia of slender towers
and soft nights, Valencia,
I’ll be there with you,
when you I no longer see–
where sand adds to the meadow,
where the violet sea recedes.

Antonio Machado is one of the most popular poets in Spain, born in Seville in 1875. His family moved to Madrid 8 years later. He studied in Madrid and subsequently moved to Soria, where he taught French. His early poetry, including Soledades (1903) and Soledades, galerías y otros poemas (1907) were strongly influenced by the French modernist movement. His marriage in 1909 resulted in his happiest and most fertile poetic period. Campos de Castilla appeared in 1912. During that time, the dominant themes in his poetry were nature, Castile and the Romancero (ballads).
His wife died only five years into their marriage and Machado moved from their home in Soria to Baeza. He became one of the many victims of the Spanish Civil War. He travelled to Valencia at the beginning of the war, supporting the Republic. In February 1939 he fled across the Pyrenees with his mother and a brother, but became ill during the trip and died shortly thereafter in Collioure. Machado's Obras Completas (Complete Works) were published in 1947, recently by Espasa-Calpe, 2006.