Page:Darío - Eleven Poems.djvu/35



All longing and all ardor, the mere sense And natural vigor; and without a sign Of stage effect or literature's pretence— If there is ever a soul sincere—'tis mine.

The ivory tower awakened my desire; I longed to enclose myself in selfish bliss, Yet hungered after space, my thirst on fire For heaven, from out the shades of my abyss.

As with the sponge the salt sea saturates Below the oozing wave, so was my heart,— Tender and soft,—bedrenched with bitter fates That world and flesh and devil here impart.

But through the grace of God my conscience Elected unto good its better part; If there were hardness left in any sense It melted soft beneath the touch of Art.

My intellect was freed from baser thought, My soul was bathed in the Castalian flood, My heart a pilgrim went, and so I caught The harmony from out the sacred wood.

Oh, sacred wood! oh, rumor, that profound Stirs from the sacred woodland's heart divine! Oh, plenteous fountain in whose power is wound And overcome our destiny malign!

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