I dream of marble cloisters
Where in silence blessed
The standing heroes rest:
At night, by the soul’s light,
I speak to them: at night!
They are on file: I pass
Among their ranks: I kiss
Their hands of stone: they open
Their eyes of stone: they move
Their lips of stone: they shake
Their beards of stone: they grasp
Their swords of stone: and weep:
The swords spin in their sheaths!:
Silent, I kiss their hands.
I speak to them at night!
They are on file: I pass
Among the ranks: and weeping too,
Embrace a statue: “Oh, statue,
It’s said that your sons drink
The blood of their own veins
In their masters’ poisoned cups!
That they speak the foul tongue
Of ruffians! and with them
Eat the bread of opprobrium
At the bloodstained table!
¡Que pierden en lengua inútil
El último fuego!: ¡dicen,
Oh mármol, mármol dormido,
Que ya se ha muerto tu raza!”
Échame en tierra de un bote
El héroe que abrazo: me ase
Del cuello: barre la tierra
Con mi cabeza: levanta
El brazo, ¡el brazo le luce
Lo mismo que un sol!: resuena
La piedra: buscan el cinto
Las manos blancas: del soclo
Saltan los hombres de mármol!
And lose in useless words
Their last fire! It’s said,
Oh statue, sleeping statue,
That your race is dead!”
The hero I embraced
Flings himself at me:
He grabs me by the collar:
Sweeps the earth with my head:
And raising his sunlike arm,
The statue speaks: the white hands
Reach for their belts:
And from their pedestals
The men of marble leap!