Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, XXXV
Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes
If, in a book, of all our wrongs
The story should be traced,
And in our souls, as on its leaves,
They should be all effaced,
I love you so, your love has left
Such traces in my breast,
That were you to blot out one wrong,
I'd blot out all the rest!
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.