Poems that you love

[rowens]

I like the simple quality of translated poems. The literal-quality, and how whatever music and depth is missing still comes through. You know it's there, at back of the translation.  

I changed the word 'life' to the word 'day' in the second stanza. It makes the whole thing better to me. 





I know well enough that this image
Fixed for ever in my mind
Is not you, but the shadow
Of love which exists in me
While my time is still not run out.

So you seem to me my love made visible,
Endowed by me with that very grace
Which makes me suffer, weep and despair
Of everything at times, but at others
Lifts me up to the zenith of our day,
Possessing the joys granted only
To the chosen few beyond the world.

And although I know this I then think
That without you, without the rare
Excuse which you gave me, my love,
Now a tenderness outside me,
Would today be there within
Sleeping still and lying in hope
Of someone who, at his call, at last
Would set it beating joyfully.

Then I thank you and say to you;
For this I came into the world, to await you;
To live because of you, as you live
Because of me, even though you do not know it,
Because of this deep love I have for you.

Luis Cernuda