Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, LII
Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes
When from out our happy past
The flying hours we call,
A tear-drop glitters upon your eye
And trembles, just ready to fall.
And at length it falls at the thought that we both
Shall return to lament alway,
As the day that is for the day that was
And the day that's to come for to-day.
From Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1891) by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes. This poem is in the public domain.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, a Romantic lyric poet who is regarded as one of the first modern Spanish poets, was born on February 17, 1836, in Seville, Spain. He was one of eight children born to Joaquina Bastida y Vargas and the painter José Domínguez Bécquer, who adopted the Bécquer surname as an acknowledgement of his family’s Flemish ancestors. The elder Bécquer died in 1841, and his wife passed away in 1847.