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From “Peruvian Poems”
Translated by John Pierrepont Rice
THE WAY was black, | |
| The night was mad with lightning; I bestrode | |
| My wild young colt upon a mountain road. | |
| And, crunching onward, like a monster’s jaws | |
| His ringing hoof-beats their glad rhythm kept; | 5 |
| Breaking the glassy surface of the pools | |
| Where hidden waters slept. | |
| A million buzzing insects in the air | |
| On droning wing made sullen discord there. | |
| But suddenly, afar, beyond the wood, | 10 |
| Beyond the dark pall of my brooding thought, | |
| I saw lights cluster like a swarm of wasps | |
| Among the branches caught. | |
| “The inn!” I cried, and on his living flesh | |
| My broncho felt the lash and neighed with eagerness. | 15 |
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| And all this time the cool and quiet wood | |
| Uttered no sound, as though it understood. | |
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| Until there came to me upon the night | |
| A voice so clear, so clear, so ringing sweet!— | |
| A voice as of a woman, and her song | 20 |
| Dropped like soft music winging at my feet, | |
| And seemed a sigh that, with my spirit blending, | |
| Lengthened and lengthened out, and had no ending. | |
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| And through the empty silence of the night, | |
| And through the quiet of the hills, I heard | 25 |
| That music; and the sounds the night wind bore me, | |
| Like spirit voices from an unseen world, | |
| Came drifting o’er me. | |
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| I curbed my horse, to catch what she might say: | |
| “At night they come, and they are gone by day.” | 30 |
| And then another voice, with low refrain | |
| And untold tenderness, took up the strain: | |
| “Oh, love is but an inn upon life’s way— | |
| At night they come, and they are gone by day,” | |
| Their voices mingled in that wistful lay, | 35 |
| Then I dismounted and stretched out my length | |
| Beside a pool, and while my mind was bent | |
| Upon that mystery within the wood | |
| My eyes grew heavy and my strength was spent. | |
| And so I slept there, huddled in my cloak. | 40 |
| And now, when by untrodden paths I go | |
| Through the dim forest, no repose I know | |
| At any inn at nightfall, but apart | |
| I sleep beneath the stars, for through my heart | |
| Echoes the burden of that wistful lay: | 45 |
| “At night they come, and they are gone by day; | |
| And love is but an inn upon life’s way.” | |
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