Classic Poem

1

In this world, my masters,
There's neither truth nor lie,
But all things take the color
Of the glass before the eye.

2

If you put faith in friendship
Your dearest friend will shock it.
Oh, pooh! There is no friend but God,
And a dollar in the pocket.

3

" Law, law,
Whither away? "
" Whithersoever
The King may say. "

4

In a saddle-bag over my shoulder
Vices I bore, but mind!
In front I carried my neighbor's;
My own I had slung behind.

5

Let no one dare in this world to say,
" Of this water I will not drink. "
Though muddy the stream, a mighty thirst
May drive thee to its brink.

6

Far is the town;
Rough is the road;
When the donkey falls down,
Don't double the load.

7

" Better have wisdom than wealth, "
Say the people, far-discerning.
Your poor man may yet be rich,
But your rich man can't buy learning.

8

From the King you may take
Crown, sceptre and ring,
But not the glory
Of having been king.

9

Who shuns temptation
Shuns a fall.
If the door is locked,
The Devil won't call.

10

I was born in a bell-tower
— So my mother tells. —
When my sponsors came to the churching,
I was ringing the bells.

11

When once the cat
Has stolen the fish,
Long may you wait
Her return to the dish.

12

With plenty of children
There's no question
Of a mother dying
From indigestion.

13

I would rather be a soldier,
Or a friar with naked feet,
Than take to me a wife
At the present price of wheat.

14

Alone I am, I was born alone,
And never have I twinned,
But all alone I rove the world
Like a feather in the wind.

15

North-wind, North-wind,
Strong as wine!
Blow thou, North-wind,
Comrade mine!

16

Why to Castile
For your fortune go?
A man's Castile
Is under his hoe.

17

Said the leaf to the flower: " O fie!
You put on airs indeed!
But we sprang, both you and I,
From the selfsame little brown seed. "

18

Hopes are like laurels,
As clearly is seen,
For they never give fruit
And are always green.

19

" What is a student's cloak like? "
" A flower-garden. " " True;
For it is full of patches
Of every hue. "

20

If you would have money
Forever and a day,
The first that comes into your hand
Do not throw away.

21

My husband went to the Indies.
He sailed with the Cuban fleet.
He sent me a knife and a letter that said:
" Work, if you want to eat. "

22

My husband went to the Indies
To increase his wealth's amount.
He brought back many things to tell,
But very few to count.

23

" Gypsy, why are you chased so fast? "
" Senor , the folks are fools.
I've only stolen a halter rope
— And with it four pair of mules. "

24

There runs a swine down yonder hill,
As fast as ever he can;
And as he runs he crieth still,
" Come steal me, Gypsyman. "

25

The armless beggar has written a letter;
The blind one finds the writing clear;
The mute is reading it aloud,
And the deaf one runs to hear.

26

To a deaf man sang a mute,
With a smile upon his phiz.
A blind man stood and watched them.
What a world it is!

27

A ragged man has clothes for sale;
The bald sells combs, and here
Is a blind man vending spectacles.
This world of ours is queer.

28

Francisca, be careful how you awake
A certain bad little red little snake.
The sun strikes hot, but old and young
Stand more in dread of a bitter tongue.

29

Garden without water,
House without a roof,
Wife whose talk is all
Scolding and reproof,
Husband who forgets his home
In the tavern revel —
Here are four things
Ready for the Devil.

30

Here lies Sister Claribel,
Who made sweetmeats very well,
And passed her life in pious follies,
Such as dressing waxen dollies.

31

From mouth to mouth — as bees that dip
And hum in noontide sunny —
A ballad flew, and on my lip
It left a drop of honey.

32

Love sways all;
Money transcends all;
Time decays all,
And Death ends all.

33

In the porch of Bethlehem,
Sun, Moon, and Star,
The Virgin, St. Joseph,
And the Christ Child are.

34

Mary has no cradle
In which to lay her Son,
But His father is a carpenter,
And he will make Him one.

35

The Virgin rested, clad in blue,
Beneath an olive tree,
And all the boughs bent low to view
The Baby on her knee.

36

Where her happy heart was beating,
Mary tucked her darling in,
Singing softly: " Oh, my sweeting,
Love the poor and pardon sin. "

37

St. John and Mary Magdalen
Played hide and seek, the pair,
Till St. John threw a shoe at her,
Because she didn't play fair.

38

The little birds among the reeds,
God's trumpeters are they,
For they hail the Sun with music
And wish him happy day.

39

Vainly to the shrine
Goes poor Jose;
His saint is out
Of sorts to-day.

40

They say I have stolen an altar-cup,
— A lie, my good name to smirch;
For since the day that I was baptized,
I have not entered the church.

41

I am too lame to go to mass
— A loss I much deplore,
But see how slow I hobble
To the tavern door.

42

A cobbler went to mass,
But he didn't know how to pray.
He walked by the altars, asking the saints:
" Any shoes to be mended to-day? "

43

To the jasper threshold of heaven
His bench the cobbler brings:
" Shoes for these little angels
Who have nothing to wear but wings. "

44

I would not be afraid of Death
Though I saw him walking by,
For without God's permission
He cannot kill a fly.

45

The reason the hedgehog has such soft hair
— At least so runs the rumor —
Is that God created that creature there,
When God was out of humor.

46

You say your taste is for cinnamon,
And for saffron yours, my friends;
But mine is the only Catholic taste,
A taste for whatever God sends.

47

Alas! Our Mother of Healing,
Mother of those in pain!
Our wheat is perishing with drought.
Send thy holy rain.

48

As I was telling my beads,
While the dawn was red,
The Virgin came to greet me
With her arms outspread.

49

When to mass in the temple of Solomon
The Virgin went, behold!
The Sunday raiment that she had on
Was of heavenly blue and gold.

50

Thursdays three in the year there be,
That shine more bright than the sun's own ray —
Holy Thursday, Corpus Christi,
And our Lord's Ascension Day.

51

The swallows on Mount Calvary
Plucked tenderly away
From the brows of Christ two thousand thorns,
Such gracious birds are they.

52

Far away, on Calvary hill,
The olive woods are sweet and still.
There four larks and a nightingale
The death of Jesus Christ bewail.

53

When the priest at the altar lifted up
The Body of God, Christ said to me:
" Drink life eternal from the cup
Wherein I tasted death for thee. "

54

The Giralda says she wouldn't be French,
Not for many a million.
The Giralda says she's Spanish,
Andalusian and Sevillian.

55

I am the King's poor soldier;
Mine honor is my own;
But while the King maintains me,
I'll maintain his throne.

56

To-morrow comes the drawing of lots;
The chosen march delighted,
And leave the girls behind with those
Whom the King has not invited.

57

Girls, if you want lovers,
Go paint them on a screen,
For the gallant lads of Spain
Are plighted to the Queen.

58

No help for it; must be a soldier
And follow after the drum.
Nothing but drum for breakfast and dinner;
Sulky and spent we come.
Rran, tan, plan, plan!
If only the thing were dumb!

59

The king gives me four pennies,
And so, set free from care,
I eat and drink and always have
Ready cash to spare.

60

Let the barracks stand for a holy church,
Each soldier for a saint,
And our back pay for candles
Whose light is far and faint.

61

The life of a soldier
Is to take things as they fall,
To sleep in somebody else's bed
And to die in the hospital.

62

The moon is a Republican,
And the sun with open eye;
The earth she is Republican,
And Republican am I.

63

The Republic is dead and gone;
Bury her out of the rain.
But see! There is never a Panteon
Can hold the funeral train.

64

When I am missing, hunt me down
In Andalusia's purple light,
Where all the beauties are so brown,
And all the wits so bright.

65

I went to the meadow
Day after day,
To gather the blossoms
Of April and May,
And there was Mercedes,
Always there,
Sweetest white lily
That breathes the air.

66

The five pinks slipt through thy window
Should plead my rueful case,
For those are my five senses,
Now captives of thy grace.

67

Off goes the maiden
To Barcelona town!
The mother who bore thee
Deserves a crown.

68

By night I go to the patio,
And my tears in the fountain fall,
To think that I love you so much,
And you love me not at all.

69

" What is jealousy? " asked a learned man,
Blinking all about.
'Twas a peasant who made answer:
" Fall in love and you'll find out. "

70

Mary, little Mary,
Who lives next door to me,
Even the holy water
Takes with coquetry.

71

Like to mosquitoes
Are your loves, O John.
They bite and leave a little smart,
They sing and they are gone.

72

Poor boy, you hav'n't a nose,
For God did not will it so.
Fairings you buy at the fair,
But as for noses, no.

73

San Sebastian, shot full of arrows,
Though my mother-in-law demurs,
May the lot of thy glorious soul be mine,
The lot of thy body hers.

74

Ah, little widow, widow!
Black veil and lips so red!
Let us two speedily marry.
Leave God to pity the dead.

75

Maria gave me a rose,
And her mother chanced to see.
Then Maria's face was a pinker rose
Than the rose she had given me.

76

If I seem to make love to thy cousin,
Thou wilt forgive the feint;
Always one kisses the altar-step
Before one kisses the saint.

77

For one who binds in a golden net
More golden threads of hair,
I have forgotten a proud brunette
With eyes of black despair.

78

I live so long away from thee
It ought to make me sage,
For when I live away from thee,
Each moment is an age.

79

Tiny and dainty, you please me well,
Down to my heart's true pith.
You look to me like a little bell
Made by a silversmith.

80

The rose-bush bore a rose,
The lily-stem a bloom,
Thy father reared a daughter,
— For whom?

81

Half down the street two paving-stones
I found in quarrel grim,
Each claiming that your fairy foot
Had rested upon him.
If stones so fare, what then
Shall be the fate of men?

82

If I could but be buried
In the dimple of your chin,
I would wish, Dear, that dying
Might at once begin.

83

Very anxious is the flea,
Caught between finger and thumb.
More anxious I, on watch for thee,
Lest thou shouldst not come.

84

If thou wilt be a white dove,
I will be a blue.
We'll put our bills together
And coo, coo, coo.

85

The stars of heaven
Are a thousand and seven.
Those eyes of thine.
Make a thousand and nine.

86

Such love for thee, sent forth from me,
Beats on such iron gate
That I, used so, no longer know
Whether I love or hate.

87

You will not love me because I am poor
And can't even give you flowers?
Well, then, go marry the clock,
That can always give the hours.

88

Because I look thee in the face,
Set not for this thy hopes too high,
For many go to the market-place
To see and not to buy.

89

Your mother is always saying
That you are better than I.
In what book did she read that heresy?
In what dream did she dream that lie?

90

They say you do not love me.
I shall not take to my bed,
But to-morrow I'll put on mourning
Of taffeta scarlet-red.

91

Of love and of waves
There is this to say, —
They look like mountains,
And are but spray.

92

Don't act as if you were the Queen,
Putting on such airs.
I don't choose to reach my Love
By a flight of stairs.

93

You're always saying you'd die for me.
I doubt it nevertheless;
But prove it true by dying,
And then I'll answer yes.

94

I'll not have you, Little Torment,
I don't want you, Little Witch.
Let your mother light four candles
And stand you in a niche.

95

Maiden of the twenty lovers,
And I the twenty-first, no less,
— If all the others are like to me,
You'll die in single blessedness.

96

Don't blame me that eyes are wet,
For I only pay my debt.
I've taught you to cry and fret,
But first you taught me to forget.

97

Once, that I might not see thee,
I gave forth many sighs.
Now, that I may not see thee,
I turn away my eyes.

98

We loved each other once;
Our days like music went;
And then we both forgot,
And now are both content.

99

Thy loves I might compare
To plates of earthenware.
Break one and, Mother of Grace!
Another fills its place.

100

" Before I forget "
— Thus didst thou say to me —
" The Queen of the Moors
Shall a Christian be. "
Long ago thou didst forget,
But the Queen of the Moors
Is a Moslem yet.

101

Mine is a lover well worth the loving.
Under my balcony he cries:
" You have maddened me with your grace of moving,
And the beaming of your soft black eyes. "

102

Too long our separation;
Soul of my soul thou art,
The Virgin of Consolation
On the altar of my heart.

103

Though thou go to the highest heaven,
And God's hand draw thee near,
The saints will not love thee half so well
As I have loved thee here.

104

The learned are not wise,
The saints are not in bliss;
They have not looked into your eyes,
Nor felt your burning kiss.

105

If I had a blossom rare,
I would twine it in thy hair,
Though God should stoop and ask for it
To make His heaven more exquisite.

106

When I go to church,
And you are not there,
I would have mass
As short as a prayer.
When I go to church
And find you, Dear,
I would have mass
As long as a year.

107

Every time I pass your house
— I do not have to search —
I kneel upon the threshold
As if it were a church.

108

Were it said that the Rising Sun
Had offended thee, most dear,
I would challenge the Terrible, Shining One,
My heart against his spear.

109

To a paving-stone of the street
(Now what might this betoken?)
I told my grief and, by my faith,
That paving-stone was broken.

110

It weighs upon my heart
To see thy mourning dress.
That shadow of thy sorrow
Is my distress.
Ill fall that sombre robe!
Ill fall its every thread!
That my Sweetheart should wear mourning
Ere I am dead!

111

When thou wert born, each sleeping flower
Swiftly into blossom sprung;
On the font in thy baptismal hour
Nightingales lit and sung.

112

Going and coming,
I lost my heart one day.
Love came to me laughing;
In tears Love went away.

113

If to these iron bars
Thou wilt not bend thine head,
This very night yon shining stars
Shall see my lying dead.

114

Like the eyes of my Sweetheart
My hard life goes,
Eyes great as my weariness,
Black as my woes.

115

Pain and pain and pain and pain!
All is pain for me
— Pain because I see thee not,
And pain because I see.

116

Have pity — have pity upon me,
Thou who pitiest none,
Harder of heart than the columns
In the temple of Solomon.

117

Hope died one day of anguish;
I stood by the sepulchre,
And saw among the mourners
Truth, who murdered her.

118

I lost him in a dream,
— But whither is it gone?
In oblivion must I seek for him,
— But where's oblivion?

119

Three years after I was dead,
The heavy earth above me said:
" What if thy sweetheart has forgot? "
And I made answer: " She has not. "

120

He loves not, though he swear it thrice,
Whose heart wears not love's cross above.
The love that is not sacrifice
Hath nothing but the name of love.