NIGHTFALL IN THE TROPICS

by: Rubén Darío (1867-1916)

      HERE is twilight grey and gloomy
      Where the sea its velvet trails;
      Out across the heavens roomy
      Draw the veils.
       
      Bitter and sonorous rises
      The complaint from out the deeps,
      And the wave the wind surprises
      Weeps.
       
      Viols there amid the gloaming
      Hail the sun that dies,
      And the white spray in its foaming
      "Miserere" sighs.
       
      Harmony the heavens embraces,
      And the breeze is lifting free
      To the chanting of the races
      Of the sea.
       
      Clarions of horizons calling
      Strike a symphony most rare,
      As if mountain voices calling
      Vibrate there.
       
      As though dread, unseen, were waking,
      As though awesome echoes bore
      On the distant breeze's quaking
      The lion's roar.

--Translated by Thomas Walsh

"Nightfall in the Tropics" is reprinted from Hispanic Anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish by English and North American Poets. Ed. Thomas Walsh. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1920.

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