My love, you destroy me, you rend, 
          You tear me apart. 
You are a wild swan I have caught
          And housed in my heart. 

My sister, my love, I am shattered, 
           Broken, dismayed. 
The live wings, the wild wings are beating, 
            They make me afraid.

Fold your wings, brood like a dove, 
         Be a dove I can cherish
More calmly, my dear, my tempestuous love, 
          Or I perish. 

From On a Grey Thread (Will Ransom, 1923) by Elsa Gidlow. This poem is in the public domain. 

translated from the Spanish by William George Williams

When I met her I loved myself.
It was she who had my best singing,
she who set flame to my obscure youth,
she who raised my eyes toward heaven.

Her love moistened me, it was an essence.
I folded my heart like a handkerchief 
and after I turned the key on my existence.

And thus it perfumes my soul
with a distant and subtle poetry.

 


 

Mi vida es un recuerdo 

 

Cuando la conocí me amé á mí mismo.
Fué la que tuvo mi mejor lirismo,
la que encendió mi obscura adolescencia,
la que mis ojos levantó hacia el cielo.

     Me humedeció su amor, que era una esencia,
doblé mi corazón como un pañuelo
y después le eché llave á mi existencia.

     Y por eso perfuma el alma mía
con lejana y diluida poesía.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 9, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.