The voice that would reach you, Hunter, must speak
in Biblical tones, or in the poetry of Walt Whitman.
You are primitive and modern, simple and complex;
you are one part George Washington and one part Nimrod.
You are the United States,
future invader of our naive America
with its Indian blood, an America
that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish.
You are strong, proud model of your race;
you are cultured and able; you oppose Tolstoy.
You are an Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar,
breaking horses and murdering tigers.
(You are a Professor of Energy,
as current lunatics say).
You think that life is a fire,
that progress is an irruption,
that the future is wherever
your bullet strikes.
No.
The United States is grand and powerful.
Whenever it trembles, a profound shudder
runs down the enormous backbone of the Andes.
If it shouts, the sound is like the roar of a lion.
And Hugo said to Grant: "The stars are yours."
(The dawning sun of the Argentine barely shines;
the star of Chile is rising..) A wealthy country,
joining the cult of Mammon to the cult of Hercules;
while Liberty, lighting the path
to easy conquest, raises her torch in New York.
But our own America, which has had poets
since the ancient times of Nezahualcóyolt;
which preserved the footprint of great Bacchus,
and learned the Panic alphabet once,
and consulted the stars; which also knew Atlantic
(whose name comes ringing down to us in Plato)
and has lived, since the earliest moments of its life,
in light, in fire, in fragrance, and in love--
the America of Moctezuma and Atahualpa,
the aromatic America of Columbus,
Catholic America, Spanish America,
the America where noble Cuauthémoc said:
"I am not in a bed of roses"--our America,
trembling with hurricanes, trembling with Love:
O men with Saxon eyes and barbarous souls,
our America lives. And dreams. And loves.
And it is the daughter of the Sun. Be careful.
Long live Spanish America!
A thousand cubs of the Spanish lion are roaming free.
Roosevelt, you must become, by God's own will,
the deadly Rifleman and the dreadful Hunter
before you can clutch us in your iron claws.
And though you have everything, you are lacking one thing:
God!
Notes
{1} - there is more than one translation of this poem
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Dario is a modernist genius
From guest Helen (contact)
Ruben Dario is a genius of his time, easily the meaning of modernism. His poetry brought vigor and life to the stale, monotonous Spanish-language poetry of the time to bring forth a new generation of Latin American Authors. This poem is a tribute to Dario's best work and I fully agree with mermaid7's comments. I think Roberto González Echevarría summed it up the best - "In Spanish, there is poetry before and after Rubén Darío. … the first major poet in the language since the seventeenth century … He ushered Spanish-language poetry into the modern era by incorporating the aesthetic ideals and modern anxieties of Parnassiens and Symbolism, as Garcilaso had infused Castilian verse with Italianate forms and spirit in the sixteenth century, transforming it forever. Darío and Garcilaso led the two most profound poetic revolutions in Spanish, yet neither is known abroad, except by Hispanists. They have not traveled well, particularly in English-speaking countries, where they are all but unknown." -
What I do like about this poem is a different point of view about America and an American icon. It is humbling, as an American, to try to understand why other countries do not embrace all we do. This poem has enough respect, but it also points a harsh reality that Dario's countrymen HAVE a history that is ancient; have experiences with God; have PRIDE. Line 43 is wonderous in its connection with the force of hurricanes and love--the constant churning, the twisting forces, the uprooting of things. Line 30 is haunting. The poetry of the land has lived, and people know it: Only outsiders can't seem to comprehend the depth of the poetic language and histories. The outsiders are too busy enforcing and conquering. Lines 23 and 48 play with the lion image.
Dario has a balance in this poem; he admits that America is a powerful nation, yet, it can not dominate the spirit of his countrymen because they have the power of their history and culture.
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