Fate

        by Rubén Darío (1867-1916)

                                      To René Pérez

   Lucky is the tree with hardly any feeling,
still luckier the rock, for it can’t feel at all,
for there is no pain like the pain of living,
for the conscious life’s the greatest weight of all.
   Being and not knowing, on the course unknown,
and the fear of having been and a future terror...
And the sure dread of being dead tomorrow,
and suffering through life and the fear of error,
   of something unsuspected, something we don’t know,
and the flesh that’s tempting like flowers and plums,
and the funeral wreaths upon the grave bestowed,
not knowing where we go
or from where we come...!

                                           --translated by Alexander Shaumyan
 

              Lo fatal*

                                           A René Pérez

   Dichoso el árbol que es apenas sensitivo
y más la piedra dura, porque ésta ya no siente,
pues no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de ser vivo,
ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente.
   Ser, y no saber nada, y ser sin rumbo cierto,
y el temor de haber sido y un futuro terror...
Y el espanto seguro de estar mañana muerto,
y sufrir por la vida y por la sombra y por
   lo que no conocemos y apenas sospechamos,
y la carne que tienta con sus frescos racimos
y la tumba que aguarda con sus fúnebres ramos,
¡y no saber adónde vamos
ni de dónde venimos...!

                                                    --Rubén Darío
                                                       (1867-1916)
                                            Cantos de vida y esperanza
 

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*NOTE:  This is one of my favorite poems by Rubén Darío of Nicaragua--often
considered to be one of the greatest poets of Latin America and the founder of
the Modernist movement.  This is one of his later poems from Cantos de vida
y esperanza.