PRIMAVERAL

by: Rubén Darío (1867-1916)

      OW is come the month of roses!
      To the woods my verse has flown
      Gathering fragrance and honey
      From the blossoms newly blown.
      Beloved, come to the forest,
      The woodland shall be our shrine
      Scented with the holy perfume
      Of the laurel and the vine.
      From tree-top to tree-top flitting
      The birds greet you with sweet lay,
      Finding joyance in your beauty
      Fairer than the birth of day;
      And the haughty oaks and hemlocks
      Bend their leafy branches green
      Forming rustling, regal arches
      For the passage of a queen.
      All is perfume, song and radiance;
      Flowers open and birds sing:
      O Beloved, 'tis the season
      Of the Spring!
       
      Flowing from a haunted cavern
      Is a crystal fountain where
      Naiads nude and flower-breasted
      Bathe and play and freight the air
      With the joyance of their laughter
      And the gladness of the wave
      When they stoop over the fountain
      And their tresses'gin to lave.
      And they know the hymns of Eros
      That in lovely Grecian tongue
      Pan one day made in the forest
      In the glorious age of song.
      Sweetest, of that glorious hymnal
      I shall choose the fairest phrase
      To enrich with ancient music
      The full cadence of my lays.
      Sweet as sweetest Grecian honey
      Will my song be when I sing,
      O Beloved, in the season
      Of the Spring!

--Translated by Salomón de la Selva

"Primaveral" is reprinted from Eleven Poems of Rubén Darío. Trans. Salomón de la Selva. New York: G.P. Putnanm's Sons, 1916.

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