July sun burns down on the sandy beaches
lashed by the breakers of the angry sea,
and in their turbulence the arrogant waters
pit their harsh roar against the ardent rays.

You flow softly in the pleasant shade
shed for you by the branchy mangrove-tree:
and on the mossy carpet spangled o’er
with sweet spring flowers your sleeping pools repose.

You frolic in the grots your banks recess
among the vast wood’s mahoes and cotton-trees,
and murmur tranquilly beneath the palms
slenderly mirrored in your crystal wave.

This heavenly Eden that here the coast secludes
is sheltered from the sun’s candescent rays;
its light falls warm and gentle through the trees
and takes a green tinge from their spreading boughs.

Here all is hush of sweet unnumbered murmurs,
the whisper softly flowing of your waters,
the growing plant, the music of the birds,
the sighing breeze and rocking of the branches.

The flowers flaunt that from your canopy hang
in countless garlands to adorn your brow,
and the huge lotus, springing from your bed,
with its fresh clusters bends towards you too.

The papaw-tree stoops quivering to your lap,
the mango with its gold and carmine drupes.
And in the poplars the gay parrot flutters
with the harsh pecker and the tuneful linnet.

Sometimes your glassy sheen is struck to foam
on every side by your dark wantoning nymphs;
you fondle them with many a secret clasp
and languidly receive their loving kisses.

And when the sun is hidden by the palms
and in your wilding temple darkness gathers,
the birds salute you with their parting songs
borne by the last breath of the wind away.

Night falls warm; already the white moon
hangs shining in the midst of sapphire sky,
and in your wildwood all is rapt and stilled
and on your margins all begins to sleep.

Then in your sandy bed, bemused, beneath
the melancholy mantle of the palms,
scarcely illumined by the silver light
of the great star of night, you also sleep.

Thus soft you glide; and neither the faint stir
of boats and oars disturb your rest, nor yet
the sudden leaping of the fish that flies
in fear towards the rocks the fisher shuns;

nor the chirp of crickets from the creeks,
nor the snails’ roundelay upon the air,
nor the curassow, whose plaintive cries
distract the cayman’s sleep among the reeds.

What time the fireflies with gleaming dust
sprinkle the shady herbage of the canes
and the dark mallows of the springing cotton
that grows in the ditch, amid the stalky maize.

And the maiden in the cabin, rocking
on the light hammock languid to and fro,
sings the samba’s saddening lullaby
and singing sighs and sighing ever sings.

But of a sudden from the shore a harp
sounds on the air with urgent clanging strings,
tumultuous prelude to the flower of songs,
the sweet malaguena that makes glad the heart.

Then from the villages hard upon the harp
the joyous throng begins to scour the woods,
and soon upon your margin all is joy
and dance and song and love and merriment.

So haste away the brief unheeded hours.
And from the torpor of your gentle dreams
you hearken to your dark enticing daughters
intoning to the moon their hymns of love.

The nestling birds are tremulous with joy;
the opening magnolias shed their nectar;
the zephyrs wake and seem to sigh; your waters
feel how they palpitate within their bed.

Alas! in these hours when burning sleeplessness
revives the memory of blessings gone,
who does not seek the absent love’s soft breast
whereon to press his lips and lay his head?

The palms together twine; caressing light
evinces dismal darkness from your bed;
the flowers flood the breezes with their sweets. . . .
The soul alone feels its sad solitude!

Farewell, quiet stream; the doles of sorrow
do not grieve your green and smiling banks;
for they are for the lonely rocks alone,
lashed by the breakers of the angry sea.

The moon sleeps mirrored in your crystal waters
that overlap your shrubby banks and rock
the bluey sedges and green galingale
drooping now in drowsiness again.

You flow softly in the pleasant shade
shed for you by the branchy mangrove-tree;
and on the mossy carpet spangled o’er
with sweet spring flowers your sleeping pools repose.

 

What! would you have the fatal sister lend
an ear to sorrow’s pleas? Vain intercession!
Rabble of spectres, get you to your dens!

Separated brother was from brother!
To sit us down at table it is too late;
to get us gone with you it is too soon!

For you, unhappy ones, no longer burns
a single log upon the hearth; no do
I see that any cup awaits your kisses.

A sigh goes after you, a sigh, no more!
Peace be with your going; and may fortune
not bar the way to your retreat to light.

I hate the sepulcher, changed to the cradle
of a vile insect or a venomous snake,
where the sun never rises, nor the moon.

May among your bones a rose take root,
reigned over by the painted butterfly,
and with its fragrance permeate the dew.

Hearken fearless to the impious thunder:
and smile in contemplation, near at hand,
of a stream swollen, overflowing with life.

To get us gone with you it is too soon!
Let her consent at least, the Furious One,
to wait until the cup slips from our hand.

Why, more swiftly still alas! than you,
why does she strip us of existence bare?
From one she steals his forehead’s ornament,

another with her rude hand bends in twain:
some she envelops in a yellow veil:
and others in their entrails feel a claw

that rends, and in their veins an icy cold.
Alas! the spring will come again and find
sorrow in our gates, and lamentation.

And we shall watch the feasters from without.
Perhaps for one the hour has come to go!
The throng of spectres watches for his going.

The course that we are setting, do you know
for what port it is bound? The tomb. Our ship
already founders. Shivered, the mast falls.

Some lie drifting in the waters, dying.
Others commit them to the fragile raft;
and for him who climbed into the shrouds

hope’s despairing light still gutters on,
while wind and wave concert their batteries
and the implacable sky lets loose its bolts.

The flames mount to the lowering of the pennons,
unknown to all save to the bird of rapine,
the sullen west and monsters of the deep.

What is our life but an ill-fashioned vase
whose worth is but the worth of the desire
shut up in it by nature and by chance?

When I see it spilt by age I know
that in the hand of the wise earth alone
it can receive new form and new employ.

Life is not life, but prison, in which want
and pain and lamentation pine in vain;
pleasure flown, who is afraid of death?

Mother nature, there are no more flowers
along the slow paths of my stumbling feet.
I was born without hope or fear;
fearless and hopeless I return to thee.