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Ruben Dario

Fatality

The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient;
the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing:
there is no pain as great as being alive,
no burden heavier than that of conscious life.

To be, and to know nothing, and to lack a way,
and the dread of having been, and future terrors...
And the sure terror of being dead tomorrow,
and to suffer all through life and through the darkness,

and through what we do not know and hardly suspect...
And the flesh that temps us with bunches of cool grapes,
and the tomb that awaits us with its funeral sprays,
and not to know where we go,
nor whence we came! ...

Song of Hope

Vultures have sullied the glory of the sky;
The winds bear on their pinions
the horror of Death's cry;
Assassinating one another,
men rage and fall and die.

Has Antichrist arisen
whom John at Patmos saw?
Portents are seen and marvels
that fill the world with awe,
And Christ's return seems pressing,
come to fulfill the Law.

The ancient Earth is pregnant
with so profound a smart,
The royal dreamer, musing, silent and sad apart,
Grieves with the heavy anguish
that rends the world's great heart.

Slaughterers of ideals with the violence of fate
Have cast man in the darkness
of labyrinths intricate
To be the prey and carnage
of hounds of war and hate.

Lord Christ! for what art waiting
to come in all Thy might
And stretch Thy hands
of radiance over these wolves of night,
And spread on high Thy banners
and lave the world with light?

Swiftly arise and pour Life's essence lavishly
On souls that crazed with hunger,
or sad, or maddened be,
Who tread the paths of blindness
forgetting the dawn and Thee.

Come Lord, to make Thy glory,
with lightnings on Thy Brow!

With trembling stars around Thee
and cataclysmal woe,
And bring Thy gifts of justice
and peace and love below!

Let the dread horse John visioned
devouring stars, pass by;
And angels sound the clarion
of Judgment from on high.
My heart shall be an ember
and in thy censer lie