Melancholic Antonio Machado

Today, the 26th July is the 133rd birthday of a spirited if often melancholic poet as Nicholas Albery termed the Seville born Antonio Machado (born 26 Jly 1875). Machado's poetry has been translated by Robert Bly of Iron John fame, and appears in The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. In Albery's Poem for the Day anthology the following Robert Bly translation appears:

The Wind, One Brilliant Day

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

'In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses.'

'I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.'

'Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.'

The wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
'What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?'

Antonio Machado (1875-1939)