Eastern Rose

A feline grace is hers when walking,
profound echoes fill her form,
her dark mouth with Moorish fraud
lisps such tales as of Aladdin.

Her eyes are black, sultry, wily,
her smile is sad with ancient lore,
her flowery skirt's a sough of spells
of Indian and of sacred store.

In an Eastern garden her hand plucked
the apple of the sanctioned tree,
and the Serpent, coiling round her breasts,

bestows on lust a sacred sense.
In the limpid darkness of her eyes
the light is a sibilation.

 

Rose of Melancholy

Once I was a shepherd of stars
and life itself was like a lucid song.
The loveliest things for me became a symbol:
the rose, the prickly thistle, a young girl.

A blue wave breaking on a golden
beach was the world's harmonious voice
singing the hidden influence of the moon
upon the destinies of the human choir.

Epicurus gave to me his brimful flagons,
a faun bestowed on me his earthly pleasure,
an Arcadian shepherd the honey of his hives.

But as one day I sailed into the dream
I heard the Sirens' song from faraway
and then my soul fell sick with melancholy.

 

Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936, pseudonym of Ramón Valle Peña) is better known for his stage works and his fiction than for his poetry, which appeared in three volumes at various stages throughout his life, and was then collected in the volume Claves líricas (1930). There is a good, brief biographical sketch of the author, together with much more information, at the website of El Pasajero, a journal devoted to studies of Valle-Inclán.

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