Friday, May 11, 2012

Nameless Spirit

Of all the sublime poems, there´s one which gathers everything that can be said about the flavour of Reality, and in this case, the vessel was the Spanish poet, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. 
Let´s translate it as follows:


Nameless spirit,
indefinable essence,
I live with the formless
life of the idea.

I swim in the void,
I tremble in the sun´s bonfire
I palpitate among the shadows
and float with the mists.

I am the gold fringes
of the distant star;
I am the lukewarm and seren light
of the high moon.

I am the burning cloud 
that in the west undulates,
I am the shinning wake
of the wandering star.

I am snow on the peaks,
fire on the sands, 
blue wave on the seas,
and foam on the shores.

I am the note in the lute,
perfume in the violet,
fleeting flame in the tombs,
and ivy in the ruins.

I thunder in the torrent, 
and whistle in the flash,
and blind in the lightning,
and roar in the storm.

I laugh in the hills, 
whisper in the tall grass,
sigh in the pure wave,
and weep in the dead leaf.

I undulate with the atoms
of the smoke that flows
and slowly ascends to the sky
as immense spiral.

I, on the golden threads
the insects hang,
mingle among the trees
in the fiery nap.

I run after the nymphs
who in the cool stream
of the crystalline brook
frolic naked.

I, in forests of corals 
carpeted by white pearl,
pursue in the ocean
the light naiads.

I, in the hollow caverns
where the sun never penetrates,
mingle with the gnomes, 
and observe their riches.

I look for the already 
dissolved traces of the centuries,
and know of those empires
of which not even the name is left.

I follow in rapid giddiness
the worlds that revolve,
and my pupil embraces
the whole of creation.

I know of those regions
where no noise reaches,
and where formless stars
wait for the breah of life.

I am the bridge that crosses
over the abyss,
,I am the unknown ladder
that joins Heaven & Earth.

I am the invisible ring that
ties the world of the form
to the world of the idea.

In short, I am the Spirit, 
unknown essence, 
mysterious perfume,
of which the poet is vessel.