The 16 best rhymes of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870), Sevillian poet, he was one of the leading representatives of post-romanticism in Spain.
In his poetic creation, themes such as poetry, love, disappointment, loneliness and death stand out.
Let's get to know some of the best poems by Bécquer through this selection of 16 rhymes included in Rhymes and Legends, the most universal work of the author.
1. Rhyme I
What is poetry? What does it mean for the poet? Does language measure up to feelings or is it limited to them?
Unfailingly, for a poet, it is not easy to express what he feels through language. However, this conflict can be overcome if it is reciprocated by his beloved.
This is the first rhyme in Bécquer's collection of poems and, in a way, it serves as a thematic presentation of what is to come. It is made up of twelve verses, distributed in three stanzas, of four verses each.
I know of a giant and strange hymn
that announces a dawn in the night of the soul,
and these pages are from that hymn
deficiencies that the air expands in the shadows.I would like to write it, of the man
taming the rebellious, mean language,
with words that were at the same time
sighs and laughs, colors and notes.But it is in vain to listen; there is no figure
able to lock it up, and just oh, beautiful!
Yes, having yours in my hands,
I could, in your ear, tell you alone.
2. Rhyme IV
The theme of poetry is recurrent in the first rhymes of Bécquer, this is another example of it, which is an exaltation of the genre. At the end of almost all the stanzas, the poet sentences with the affirmation: there will be poetry. Is poetry a part of the human condition?
Poetry is in nature, in scientific enigmas, in man's conflicts with himself and in love.
Do not say that his treasure is exhausted,
Of subjects missing, the lyre was muted;
there may be no poets; but always
there will be poetry.While the light waves to the kiss
throb fiery;
while the sun the torn clouds
of fire and sight gold;as long as the air in his lap carries
perfumes and harmonies;
while there is spring in the world,
There will be poetry!While science to discover does not reach
the sources of life,
and in the sea or in the sky there is an abyss
that the calculation resists;while humanity, always moving forward
do not know how to walk;
as long as there is a mystery to man,
There will be poetry!As long as we feel the soul rejoices,
without the lips laughing;
while crying without crying
to cloud the pupil;while the heart and the head
battling continue;
as long as there is hope and memories,
There will be poetry!As long as there are eyes that reflect
the eyes that look at them;
while answering the lip sighing
to the lip that sighs;as long as they can feel in a kiss
two confused souls;
as long as there is a beautiful woman
There will be poetry!
3. Rhyme VII
At what point does an artist's inspiration emerge? For Bécquer, the illumination of a genius is always latent, it is in his soul. So what is necessary for this outbreak? A little encouragement.
From the living room in the dark corner,
of his owner perhaps forgotten,
silent and dust covered
the harp was seen.How much note slept on his strings,
like the bird sleeps on the branches,
waiting for the snow hand
that he knows how to tear them off!Ay! - I thought. How many times the genius
thus sleeps in the depths of the soul,
and a voice, like Lazarus, waits
tell him: Get up and walk!
4. Rhyme VIII
This rhyme shares thematic with the previous ones. Poetry is the central issue and, specifically, the poetic spirit, understood as an ethereal gift. Again, language limits the poet when it comes to expressing his feelings through it.
When I look at the blue horizon
get lost in the distance,
through a gauze of dust
golden and restless,
I think it's possible to tear myself away
from the miserable ground
and float with a golden mist
in light atoms
which she undone.When I look at night in the background
dark from the sky
the stars tremble, like burning
pupils of fire,
It seems possible to me to do shine
get on a flight
and drowning in her light, and with them
in fire lit
melt into a kiss.In the sea of doubt in which I roam
I don't even know what I think;
However, these anxieties tell me
that I carry something
divine in here ...
5. Rhyme XVII
Through this love poem the author reflects the reason for his happiness present from him. Again, his beloved is the reason for his happiness. And, specifically, the reason is an exchange of glances with it. To describe his feelings, the author introduces elements of nature.
Today the earth and the heavens smile at me;
today the sun reaches the bottom of my soul;
I have seen her today…; she has seen her and she has looked at me ...
Today I believe in God!
6. Rhyme XX
Four verses of major art, comprised in a single stanza, are enough for the author to describe his beloved. From the most striking external features of her to the interior of her, her soul, which is discovered with just a glance.
You know, if ever your red lips
invisible burning scorched atmosphere,
that the soul that can speak with the eyes
You can also kiss with your eyes.
7. Rhyme XXI
It is one of the most recognized poems of the author. The theme of love emerges in Bécquer's poetic work and is evident in rhymes like this one. The poet asks a rhetorical question and wonders what poetry is.
Is his beloved the lyrical addressee that Bécquer compares with his most sacred means of expression in these verses?
What is poetry? - You say while you nail your blue pupil to my pupil.
What is poetry? Are you asking me that?
You are poetry.
8. Rhyme XXIII
This is another of the author's most famous love-themed poems. With a more passionate tone and through a simple and emotional language, Bécquer describes, in this short rhyme of four eight syllable verses, his purest and sincere feelings towards his beloved, for which he would be able to do any thing.
For a look, a world;
For a smile, a heaven;
for a kiss... I don't know
what would I give you for a kiss!
9. Rhyme XXX
Disillusioned love and love failure are also part of the themes of Bécquer's collection of poems. This rhyme is an example of this. In this case, the love break between two lovers is sensed. A separation that cannot be avoided and that is a consequence of the pride of the subjects.
On the one hand, in the first stanza you can guess the moment of farewell and, on the other hand, in the second, the consequences after it, lament and repentance. A situation that seems to have no turning back.
He had a tear in his eyes
and to my lip a phrase of forgiveness;
she spoke pride and wiped away her crying
and the phrase on my lips expired.I go one way, she another;
but thinking of our mutual love,
I still say: Why did I keep quiet that day?
And she will say: Why didn't I cry?
10. Rhyme XXXVIII
What happens when love ends? This is another of Bécquer's best-known rhymes. Heartbreak is the main protagonist of this verse.
The author laments for an unrequited love. The frustration and impotence of the poetic self are guessed when it resolves that, once love "is forgotten" (dies), there is no going back. As with the sighs and tears lost in the immensity of the air and the sea, love, somehow, is also extinguished.
Sighs are air and go to the air.
Tears are water and they go to the sea.
Tell me, woman: when love is forgotten,
Do you know where she is going?
11. Rhyme XLI
As in the two previous rhymes, in this one, heartbreak is once again the main theme. The poet reveals the reasons why the love relationship, with the beloved to whom he refers in these verses, could not be. The use of metaphors suggests the opposite character between the two and, once again, pride leads to a disagreement between the lovers.
You were the hurricane and I was the high
tower that defies his power:
You had to crash or take me down!
I can not be!You were the ocean and I raised it
rock that firm awaits its sway
You had to break or rip me off! ...
It could not be!Beautiful you, I haughty; accustomed
one to overwhelm, the other not to yield;
the narrow path, inevitable the crash ...
It could not be!
12. Rhyme XLIX
Is her face a mask of the soul? Is it a shield to cover what you really feel? This could be the message that can be captured in these verses. A reunion between two lovers who have not yet overcome a breakup but who nevertheless try to mask reality by drawing a false line on their faces.
Do I ever find her around the world
and passes by me;
and passes by smiling, and I say:
How can you laugh?Then another smile appears on my lip
mask of pain,
and then I think: -Does she laugh
how I laugh!
13. Rhyme LIII
As the collection of poems progresses, the author discovers that the result of heartbreak is loneliness and failure.
This is one of the best-known rhymes of the Sevillian poet where, once again, he alludes to the transience of time. That which is gone will never return. So, given the brevity of the circumstances, the only thing left for us is: live in the moment.
The dark swallows will return
their nests to hang on your balcony,
and again with the wing to its crystals
playing they will call;
but those that the flight held back
your beauty and my happiness when contemplating,
those who learned our names,
those... They will not return!The bushy honeysuckle will return
from your garden the walls to climb,
and again in the afternoon, even more beautiful,
its flowers will open;but those curds of dew,
whose drops we watched tremble
and fall, like tears of the day ...
those... will not return!They will return from the love in your ears
the fiery words to sound;
your heart from its deep sleep
maybe it will wake up;but mute and absorbed on his knees,
as God is worshiped before his altar,
as I have loved you... deceive yourself,
That way they won't love you!
14. Rhyme LX
Loneliness floods the poet, who feels that his life, compared to a wasteland, cannot be "cultivated." However, there is an external entity, perhaps heartbreak, which continually leads to misery.
My life is a wasteland:
flower that I touch is shedding;
that in my fatal way,
someone is sowing evil
for me to pick it up.
15. Rhyme LXVI
Where I come from and where I am going are the two existential questions that serve the poetic self as the central axis of this poem. Life is seen as a path full of hardships. The author starts from misfortune, which inevitably leads him to his fatal destiny: oblivion.
Where do I come from... the most horrible and harsh
of the trails she seeks:
the prints of bloody feet
on hard rock;
the spoils of a tattered soul
in the sharp brambles
they will tell you the way
leading to my crib.Where I go? The bleakest and saddest
from the moors he crosses;
valley of eternal snows and eternal
melancholic mists.
Where is a lonely stone
without any inscription,
where oblivion dwells,
there will be my grave.
16. Rhyme LXIX
This poem is a reflection on life and death. The author alludes, in the first verses, to the transience of life, while trying to pursue a love or seeking to achieve happiness (glory). In the end, the author implies that dying is also part of life by stating that "waking up is dying."
By shining a lightning we are born
and the radiance of him still lasts when we die:
So short is to live!The glory and the love we run after
shadows of a dream are that we chase:
Waking up is dying!
