Spanish Poems

TO HER PORTRAIT

This that you see, the false presentment planned
With finest art and all the colored shows
And reasonings of shade, doth but disclose
The poor deceits by earthly senses fanned!
Here where in constant flattery expand
Excuses for the stains that old age knows,
Pretexts against the years' advancing snows,
The footprints of old seasons to withstand;

'Tis but vain artifice of scheming minds;
'Tis but a flower fading on the winds;
'Tis but a useless protest against Fate;
'Tis but stupidity without a thought,
A lifeless shadow, if we meditate;
'Tis death, tis dust, tis shadow, yea, 'tis nought.

Translated by Roderick Gill

TO HER PORTRAIT

This artifice of colors you perceive;
The painter cunningly portrays his skill
For synthesizing colors that will kill
The very truths your senses once believed.
In flattery this art has placed its bet
That you'll excuse how horror stings the years,
How time will stab with every step it nears,
Dissecting time, your age, so you forget
That this is all an imitated grace,

Is just a flower lapping in the wind,
Is just a vain facade disguising fate,
Is now a labor foolishly misplaced,
Is now an old obsession withered thin,
Is dead, is dust, a shadow, all for naught!

Translated by Jason L. Martin

THIS THAT YOU GAZE ON...

This that you gaze on, colorful deceit,
that so immodestly displays art's favors,
with its fallacious arguments of colors
is to the senses cunning counterfeit,
this on which kindness practiced to delete
from cruel years accumulated horrors,
constraining time to mitigate its rigors,
and thus oblivion and age defeat,

is but an artifice, a sop of vanity,
is but a flower by the breezes bowed,
is but a ploy to counter destiny,
is but a foolish labor, ill-employed,
is but a fancy, and, as all may see,
is but cadaver, ashes, shadow, void.

THIS THAT YOU SEE...

This, that you see, this colored treachery,
which, by displaying all the charms of art,
with those false syllogisms of its hues
deceptively subverts the sense of sight;
this, in which false praise has vainly sought
to shun the horrors of the passing years,
and conquering of time the cruelty,
to overcome age and oblivion's might,

is a vain artifice cautiously wrought,
is a fragile bloom caught by the wind,
is, to ward off fate, pure uselessness;
is a foolish effort that's gone wrong,
is a weakened zeal, and, rightly seen,
is corpse, is dust, is gloom, is nothingness.

Translated by Alix Ingber