Classic Poem

The moon came to the forge
in her bustle of spikenard.
The child looks and looks.
The child is looking at her.
In the sympathetic air
the moon waves her arms
and discloses, lewd and chaste,
her breasts of hard tin.
Run away, moon, moon, moon!
If the gypsies should come,
they would make from your heart
white necklaces and white rings.
Child, let me go on dancing.
When the gypsies come
they will find you on the anvil
with your little eyes closed.
Run away, moon, moon, moon!
for already I hear their horses.
Child, let me alone, do not step
on my starched whiteness.

The horseman was approaching,
beating the drum of the plain.
Inside the forge,
the child's eyes are closed.

Through the olive grove came,
bronze and dream, the gypsies.
Their heads lifted upright
and their eyes half closed.

Oh, how the owl is hooting,
oh, how it hoots in the tree!
The moon goes through the sky
with a child by the hand.

The gypsies inside the forge,
are weeping, crying loudly.
The air watches and watches.
The air is watching it.