Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, LX
Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes
From a dark corner of the mind
Past memories
Fly to beset me, like a swarm
Of angry bees.
Attacked, surrounded, ’tis in vain
I try to fling.
Them off; each thrusts into my soul
Its poisoned sting.
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.