Rubén Darío: 12 poems by the genius of modernism

Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan poet, was one of the most prominent representatives of modernism, a Spanish-American literary movement that set a precedent in the history of the Spanish language. We present a selection of 12 poems, grouped as follows: seven short poems and five long ones, including a poem by Rubén Darío for children.

Caltrops - IV

In the following poem, Rubén Darío points out the paradox of the poet, who delivers his wealth to the world (or a world of riches) through his art and yet his lot is that of the poor of the Earth. The poet dresses the world with beauties, while necessity undresses it. There is no comparison between creative sacrifice and gratification, but the poet does not even try to make it so. Excess is his character, since poetry is his vocation, the voice of the inner command that subdues him. There the paradox. The poem was included in the book Caltrops, published in Chile in 1887.

Put the poet in his verses
all the pearls of the sea,
all the gold from the mines,
all oriental ivory;
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Golconda diamonds,
the treasures of Baghdad,
the jewels and medals
from the chests of a Nabad.
But since she didn't have
for making verses not a piece of bread,
at the end of writing them
she died of necessity.

Venus

Venus is included in the most celebrated work of Rubén Darío: Blue…, published in 1888. It is a sonnet in verse of major art. In this, Rubén Darío alludes to uncertain love, to the unfathomable distance between lovers, whose alien realities seem impossible to settle.

In the quiet night, my bitter nostalgia suffered.
In search of stillness I went down to the cool and quiet garden.
In the dark sky, Venus beautiful shivering shone,
as inlaid in ebony a golden and divine jasmine.

To my soul in love, an oriental queen seemed,
waiting for her lover under the roof of her dressing room,
or that, carried on the shoulders, the deep extension of her ran,
triumphant and luminous, leaning on a palanquin.

"Oh, blonde queen! -tell him, my soul wants to leave its chrysalis
and fly towards you, and kiss your lips of fire;
and float in the nimbus that sheds pale light on your forehead,

and in stately ecstasy not to let you love for a moment ".
The Night air cooled the warm atmosphere.
Venus, looking down from the abyss, looked at me sadly.

That love does not admit strings reflections

Included in Profane prose and other poems (1896), this poem is an evocation of love understood as passion and eroticism. Loving passion is represented as extreme, a fighter, a living fire that devastates everything. It is a volcanic fire that cannot be smothered by will. Love is madness, excess.

Lady, love is violent
and when it transfigures us
the thought ignites us
The madness.

Don't ask my arms for peace
that they have prisoners of yours:
my hugs are of war
and my kisses are of fire;
and it would be vain attempt
turning my mind dark
if the thought turns me on
The madness.

Clear is my mind
of flames of love, lady,
as the store of the day
or the palace of dawn.
And the perfume of your ointment
my luck pursues you,
and it ignites my thought
The madness.

My joy your palate
rich honeycomb concept,
as in the holy Song:
Mel et lac sub lingua tua*.
The delight of your breath
in such a fine glass hurries,
and it ignites my thought
The madness.

(*) Honey and milk under your tongue (phrase taken from the biblical text Song of songs)

I chase a way

It is a poem written in the form of the sonnet in major art verse. The poet immerses us in the creative process as the subject of the poem and opens a window to the intimacy of the creator. Writing as an act appears elusive, elusive and complex. The poet seeks the construction of a significant form and confesses his intentions and falls. The poem was first published in Profane prose and other poems (1896).

I chase a way that doesn't find my style
thought button that seeks to be the rose;
she announces herself with a kiss that rests on my lips
the impossible embrace of the Venus de Milo.

Green palms adorn the white peristyle;
the stars have predicted the vision of the Goddess to me;
and in my soul the light rests as it rests
the bird of the moon over a calm lake.

And I find only the word that flees,
the melodic initiation that flows from the flute
and the boat of the dream that roams in space;

and under the window of my Sleeping Beauty,
the continuous sob of the fountain jet
and the neck of the great white swan that questions me.

I love, you love

This poem, included in the book Songs of life and hope, is written in verse of major art. To love is for the poet the meaning of life, knowledge, vital orientation. Loving is the redemptive promise, the energy that opens its wings in the face of the threatening abyss.

Loving, loving, loving, loving always, with everything
the being and with the earth and with the sky,
with the light of the sun and the dark of the mud;
love for all science and love for all desire.

And when the mountain of life
be hard and long and high and full of abysses,
love the immensity that is of love on
And burn in the fusion of our own breasts!

The wandering song

This poem gives the title to the book The wandering song, published in 1907. According to the Nicaraguan writer Ricardo Llopesa, in this book Rubén Darío moves away from the modernist aesthetic. Indeed, Rubén Darío gives course to the verses in free rhyme. In this poem, the singer, the troubadour, the bearer of the word made musicality, is celebrated as a universal being in a thousand ways, who embraces humanity with his walk. There is no unworthy transport for the journey of the singer's voice, which carries with it joys and sorrows. There are no limits for the musical word, for poetry, there is no place where it is not required.

The singer goes all over the world
smiling or brooding.

The singer goes on earth
in white peace or in red war.

On the back of the elephant
through the huge mind-blowing India.

In palanquin and in fine silk
for the heart of China;

by car in Lutecia;
in a black gondola in Venice;

over the pampas and the plains
in American foals;

down the river he goes in the canoe,
or is seen on the bow

of a steamer over the vast sea,
or in a sleeping-car wagon.

The camel of the desert,
ship alive, takes you to a port.

On the swift sleigh he climbs
in the whiteness of the steppe.

Or in the crystal silence
who loves the northern lights.

The singer walks through the meadows,
between crops and cattle.

And he walks into his London on the train,
and his Jerusalem as a donkey.

With couriers and with bad,
the singer goes for humanity.

In song he flies, with his wings:
Harmony and Eternity.

Agency

Ricardo Llopesa says that, in this poem, Rubén Darío positions himself in front of the reality of the world in a critical and frontal way, assuming a “telegraphic language”. For the author, the poet "exposes the disintegration of the unity of religion, society and language." The poem is included in The wandering song (1907).

What's new?... The Earth trembles.
War is incubated in The Hague.
Kings have deep terror.
Smells rotten all over the world.
There are no scents in Gilead.
The Marquis de Sade landed
from Seboim.
The gulf-stream changes course.
Paris flails with pleasure.
A comet is going to appear.
The prophecies are already fulfilled
of the old monk Malachi.
In the church the devil hides.
A nun has given birth… (Where?…)
Barcelona is no longer good
but when the pump sounds ...
China cuts her ponytail.
Henry de Rothschild is a poet.
Madrid abhors the cape.
He no longer has eunuchs the pope.
It will be arranged for a bill
child prostitution.
White faith is distorted
And all black goes on
Somewhere is ready
the palace of the Antichrist.
Communications are changed
between lesbians and gypsies.
It is announced that the Jew is coming
wandering... Is there something else, my God? ...

Sonatina

Sonatina is part of Profane prose and other poems (1896). Appealing to the imaginary of fairy tales, where princesses dream of princes who free them from confinement, the poet reveals the dreamy and elusive spirit in front of the concrete world - typical of modernism-, a world incapable of satisfying the yearnings for transcendence and vitality that only love, or perhaps passion, can offer.

The princess is sad... what will the princess have?
Her sighs escape her strawberry mouth
that she has lost her laughter, that she has lost her color.
The princess is pale in her golden chair,
the keyboard of her golden key is silent;
and in a forgotten vase a flower faints.

The garden populates the triumph of the peacocks.
Talkative, the owner says banal things,
and, dressed in red, pirouettes the jester.
The princess does not laugh, the princess does not feel;
the princess chases through the eastern sky
the dragonfly wanders from a vague illusion.

Are you thinking of the prince of Golconsa or of China,
or in which he has stopped his Argentine float
to see the sweetness of light from his eyes?
Or in the king of the isles of fragrant roses,
or in which he is sovereign of the clear diamonds,
or the proud owner of the pearls of Hormuz?

Oh! The poor princess with the pink mouth
wants to be a swallow, wants to be a butterfly,
have light wings, under the sky fly,
go to the sun by the luminous scale of a ray,
greet the lilies with the verses of May,
or get lost in the wind on the thunder of the sea.

She no longer wants the palace, nor the silver spinning wheel,
neither the enchanted hawk, nor the scarlet jester,
nor the unanimous swans in the azure lake.
And the flowers are sad for the flower of the court;
the jasmine of the East, the nulumbos of the North,
from the West dahlias and roses from the South.

Poor little blue-eyed princess!
She is imprisoned in her golds, she is imprisoned in her tulles,
in the marble cage of the royal palace,
the magnificent palace guarded by the guards,
who guard a hundred blacks with their hundred halberds,
a greyhound that does not sleep and a colossal dragon.

Oh! Blessed is the hypsipyle which left the chrysalis.
The princess is sad. The princess is pale ...
Oh adored vision of gold, rose and ivory!
Who will fly to the land where a prince exists
The princess is pale. The princess is sad ...
brighter than dawn, more beautiful than April!

Hush, hush, princess says the fairy godmother,
on a horse with wings, this is where he is heading,
in the belt the sword and in the hand the hawk,
the happy gentleman who adores you without seeing you,
and that he comes from afar, conqueror of Death,
to light your lips with his kiss of love!

To Columbus

This poem was written on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the Discovery of America in 1892, when Rubén Darío was invited to the commemorations of the country of Spain. It is written in 14 serventesios, stanzas formed by four verses of major art of consonant rhyme between the first and third lines, and the second and fourth lines. The poem is anchored in the Latin American conflict derived from the discovery. It brings together historical criticism with that of the present, the idealization of the pre-Hispanic world and the reference to the values of the French Revolution. It is, therefore, a synthesis of the Latin Americanist proclamations. The poem is included in the book The wandering song, 1907.

Unfortunate Admiral! Your poor America
your virgin and beautiful Indian with warm blood,
the pearl of your dreams is hysterical
of convulsive nerves and a pale forehead.

A disastrous spirit possesses your land:
where the united tribe brandished their clubs,
today perpetual war is lit between brothers,
the same races are wounded and destroyed.

The stone idol now replaces
the idol of flesh that is enthroned,
and every day the white dawn shines
in the fraternal fields blood and ash.

Disdaining kings we gave ourselves laws
to the sound of cannons and bugles,
and today to the sinister favor of black kings
Judas fraternize with Cains.

Drinking the spreading French sap
with our semi-Spanish indigenous mouth,
day by day we sing the Marseillaise
to end up dancing the Carmanola.

Perfidious ambitions have no dams,
dreamed freedoms lie undone.
That was never done by our caciques,
to whom the mountains gave arrows! .

They were proud, loyal and frank,
the heads of strange feathers girded;
I wish it had been the white men
like the Atahualpas and Moctezumas!

When seed fell into the bellies of America
of the iron race that was from Spain,
the heroic strength of him the great Castile mixed
with the strength of the mountain Indian.

Would to God the waters before intact
they will never reflect the white sails;
nor will they see the stupefied stars
get your caravels to shore!

Free as the eagles, they will see the mountains
the aborigines pass through the woods,
chasing cougars and bison
with the right dart of his laughs.

What better the rude and bizarre boss
that the soldier who in the mud the glories of his farm,
that he has made the zipa moan under his car
or tremble the frozen mummies of the Inca.

The cross that you carried us is in decline;
and after riotous revolutions,
the scoundrel writer stains the tongue
that Cervantes and Calderones wrote.

Christ goes through the streets skinny and weak,
Barabbas has slaves and epaulettes,
and in the lands of Chibcha, Cuzco and Palenque
they have seen panthers galloping.

Duels, frights, wars, constant fever
in our path he has placed sad luck:
Cristoforo Colombo, poor Admiral,
Pray to God for the world you discovered!

Triumphal march

Triumphal march, included in Songs of life and hope, was written in 1895. It represents the consolidation of the modernist aesthetic in Rubén Darío. The writer constructs the image of a triumphant army that celebrates its glories, consistent with the libertarian spirit of the independence century in Latin America. The reader finds mythological, historical and cultural references. Apparently, Rubén Darío would have been inspired by the military parade for the 400th anniversary of the Discovery of America, which took place in Spain in 1892.

The courtship is coming!
The courtship is coming! Clear and bugles are heard,
the sword is announced with vivid reflection;
the courtship of the paladins is coming, gold and iron.

It passes under the arches adorned with white Minervas and Martes,
the triumphal arches where the Famas erect their long trumpets
the solemn glory of banners,
carried by the robust hands of heroic athletes.
The noise made by the knights' weapons is heard,
the brakes that the strong warhorses chew,
the hooves that wound the earth
and the timbaleros,
that the pace beats with martial rhythms.
Such pass the fierce warriors
underneath the triumphal arches!

The clear bugles suddenly raise the sound of him,
its sonorous song,
the warm chorus of him,
that wraps in its golden thunder
the august pride of the pavilions.
He says the fight, the revenge wound,
the rough manes,
the rude plumes, the pike, the spear,
the blood that waters of heroic carmine
the earth;
black mastiffs
that drives death, that governs war.

The golden sounds
announce the advent
triumphal of Glory;
leaving the peak that guards their nests,
spreading its enormous wings to the wind,
the condors arrive. Victory has come!

The courtship is over.
The grandfather points out the heroes to the child.
See how the old man's beard
the golden loops of ermine surrounds.
The beautiful women prepare crowns of flowers,
and under the porches you can see their pink faces;
and the most beautiful
smile at the fiercest of victors.
Honor to the one who brings the strange flag captive
honor the wounded and honor the faithful
soldiers that death found by foreign hand!

Bugles! Laurels!

The noble swords of glorious times,
from their panoplies the new crowns and lauros greet
the old swords of the grenadiers, stronger than bears,
brothers of those spearmen who were centaurs?
The warrior trunks resound:
voices fill the air ...

To those ancient swords,
to those illustrious steels,
that embody past glories ...
And in the sun that today lights up the new victories won,
and the hero who guides his group of fierce youths,
to the one who loves the insignia of the maternal soil,
whom he has defied, girt with steel and weapon in hand,
the suns of the red summer,
the snows and winds of the freezing winter,
the night, the frost
and hatred and death, for being for the immortal homeland,
Salute with voices of bronze the horns of war that play the triumphal march ...

You may also be interested in the article Modernism: historical context and representatives.

I am the one

Rubén Darío travels the itinerary of youthful passions, a metaphor for the aesthetic transformation that led him to modernism. Literature and, in particular, modernism, is a salvific vehicle. This poem becomes an aesthetic proclamation, a sort of manifesto where Rubén Darío declares and defends the principles creators of modernism in front of their critics, as well as the literary and mythological references on which they holds. The poem was published in the book Songs of life and hope.

I am the one who only said yesterday
the blue verse and the profane song,
on whose night a nightingale had
which was a lark of light in the morning.

I was the owner of my dream garden,
full of roses and lazy swans;
the owner of the turtledoves, the owner
of gondolas and lyres on the lakes;

and very eighteenth century and very old
and very modern; bold, cosmopolitan;
with strong Hugo and ambiguous Verlaine,
and an infinite thirst for illusions.

I knew of pain since my childhood,
my youth... Was it my youth?
Her roses still leave me their fragrance ...
a fragrance of melancholy ...

Unbridled foal my instinct was launched,
my youth rode a horse without bridle;
She was drunk and with a dagger around her belt;
if it did not fall, it was because God is good.

In my garden a beautiful statue was seen;
it was judged marble and it was raw meat;
a young soul dwelt in her,
sentimental, sensitive, sensitive.

And shy before the world, so
that locked in silence did not come out,
but when in the sweet spring
it was time for the melody ...

Sunset time and discreet kiss;
twilight and retreat hour;
hour of madrigal and rapture,
of "I adore you", and of "oh!" and sigh.

And then the dulzaina was a game
of mysterious crystalline ranges,
a renewal of drops of the Greek bread
and a reel of Latin music.

With such air and with such alive ardor,
that the statue were born suddenly
on the virile thigh goat legs
and two satyr horns on her forehead.

Like the Galatea gongorina
I loved the Marquise Verleniana,
and thus joined the divine passion
a sensual human hyperesthesia;

all craving, all burning, pure sensation
and natural vigor; and without falsehood,
and without comedy and without literature ...:
If there is a sincere soul, that is mine.

The ivory tower tempted my yearning;
I wanted to lock myself inside myself,
and I was hungry for space and thirsty for heaven
From the shadows of my own abyss

Like the sponge that the salt saturates
in the juice of the sea, it was the sweet and tender
my heart, filled with bitterness
for the world, the flesh and hell.

But, by the grace of God, in my conscience
the Good knew how to choose the best part;
and if there was rough gall in my existence,
All acrimony melted the Art.

I freed my intellect from thinking low,
the castalia water bathed my soul,
my heart made a pilgrimage and brought
harmony from the sacred jungle.

Oh, the sacred forest! Oh the deep
emanation of the divine heart
from the sacred jungle! Oh the fertile
source whose virtue conquers destiny!

Ideal forest that complicates the real,
there the body burns and lives and Psyche flies;
while down below the satyr fornicates,
drunk in blue, slide Filomela.

Dream pearl and loving music
in the blooming dome of the green laurel,
Subtle hypsipila sucks in the rose,
and the mouth of the faun the nipple bites.

There goes the god in heat after the female,
And the reed of Bread rises out of the mud;
eternal life sows its seeds,
and the harmony of the great Whole sprouts.

The soul that enters there must go naked,
trembling with desire and holy fever,
On wounding thistle and sharp thorn:
So it dreams, so it vibrates and so it sings.

Life, light and truth, such a triple flame
produces the inner infinite flame.
Pure Art as Christ exclaims:
Ego sum lux et veritas et vita!

And life is mystery, blind light
and the inaccessible truth amazes;
the grim perfection never surrenders,
and the ideal secret sleeps in the shade.

So to be sincere is to be powerful;
how naked she is, the star shines;
the water says the soul of the fountain
in the crystal voice that flows from her.

Such was my attempt, to make the soul pure
mine, a star, a sound source,
with the horror of literature
and crazy with twilight and dawn.

Of the blue twilight that sets the tone
that the celestial ecstasy inspires,
haze and minor key - all flute!
and Aurora, daughter of the Sun — the whole lyre!

She passed a stone that was thrown by a sling;
an arrow passed that sharpened a violent man.
The stone of the sling went to the wave,
and the arrow of hatred went to the wind.

The virtue is in being calm and strong;
with the inner fire everything burns;
rancor and death triumph,
and towards Bethlehem... The caravan passes!

To Margarita Debayle

This poem, included in the book The trip to Nicaragua and Intermezzo Tropical (1909), is one of Rubén Darío's poems for children. It was written during her stay at the Debayne family's summer home, once the girl Margarita asked her to recite a story for her. The characteristic elements of modernism are present: the rich musicality that dominates the text, the exotic references and the legendary references.

Margarita is beautiful the sea,
and the wind,
she carries a subtle scent of orange blossom;
I feel
in the soul a lark sing;
your accent:
Margarita, I'm going to tell you
a story:
This was a king who had
a palace of diamonds,
a shop made by day
and a herd of elephants,
a malachite kiosk,
a large tissue blanket,
and a gentle little princess,
so pretty,
Daisy flower,
as cute as you.
One afternoon, the princess
saw a star appear;
the princess was naughty
and he wanted to go get her.
She wanted her to make her
decorate a pin,
with a verse and a pearl
and a feather and a flower.
The gorgeous princesses
they look a lot like you:
they cut lilies, they cut roses,
they cut stars. They are like that.
Well, the beautiful girl left,
under the sky and over the sea,
to cut the white star
that made her sigh.
And she kept going up
by the moon and beyond;
but the bad thing is that she went
without dad's permission.
When she was back
of the Lord's parks,
she looked all wrapped up
In a sweet glow
And the king said, 'What have you done to yourself?

I have looked for you and I did not find you;
and what do you have on your chest
How lit do you see? ».
The princess was not lying.
And so she told the truth:
«I went to cut my star
to the blue vastness ».
And the king cries out: «Have I not told you
that blue should not be cut?
What madness! What a whim ...
The Lord is going to be angry.
And she says, 'There was no attempt;
I left I don't know why.
By the waves by the wind
I went to the star and cut it.
And the dad says angrily:
«You must have a punishment:
return to heaven and stolen it
you are now going to return ».
The princess is saddened
for its sweet flower of light,
when then it appears
smiling the Good Jesus.
And so he says: «In my countryside
that rose I offered him;
they are my girls flowers
that when they dream they think of me ».
Dress the king shiny bubbles,
and then parade
four hundred elephants
on the seashore.
The little princess is beautiful
well she already has the pin
in what they shine, with the star,
verse, pearl, feather and flower.
Margarita, the sea is beautiful,
and the wind
It has a subtle essence of orange blossom:
your breath.
Since you are going to be far from me,
save, girl, a gentle thought
to which one day he wanted to tell you
a story.

Biography of Rubén Darío

Félix Rubén García Sarmiento, better known as Rubén Darío, was a Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat who was born on January 18, 1867, and died on February 6, 1916.

From a very young age, he showed his gifts for writing and journalism, as well as his commitment to defending justice, freedom and democracy. He collaborated in periodicals such as El Ferrocarril and El Porvenir, and was editor of the daily La Unión, all of these Nicaraguan newspapers. She also collaborated with the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nation.

He lived in El Salvador, where he was a protégé of President Rafael Zaldívar. There he met the poet Francisco Gavidia, whose teachings influenced his poetic work. He also lived in Chile, Costa Rica, Panama and Guatemala. He was honorary consul in Buenos Aires and ambassador in Madrid.

He is the author of fundamental works of literature in the Spanish language, such as Azul... (1888), Profane prose and other poems (1896) and Songs of life and hope (1905). Among many other things, he has been recognized for adapting French Alexandrian verse to the Spanish language.