Commonweal/Vol. 3/Number 12/Poems of Brazil

by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Francisca Julia da Silva and Olavo Bilac

POEMS OF BRAZIL

Translated from the Portuguese by Thomas Walsh

The Blue Fly

Once in the springtime a bluebottle fly
With wings all crimson gold was born—a child
Of China or of Hindustan, to lie
Where petals of the purple roses smiled.

She flew and bumbled, bumbled as she flew
By noons and moonlight, vision beautiful
With lovelier lustre than e’er diamond knew
Upon the finger of the Grand Mogul.

Until a toiler saw her in amaze,
A grimy toiler, and he asked her—“Why
This glitter of a pageant for my gaze?
Tell me who taught you this, my lovely fly?”

Around him, ceaseless buzzing, she replied—
“Life, I am Life, the flowering of grace,
The dream of youth eternal and the pride.
Look, fame and love amid my flight I trace!”

Speechless, he stood transfixed before her there
Like some poor dervish rigid in his dream,
Lost in confusion of his fond despair
And powerless to solve her magic gleam.

For ‘mid the brilliant wings that fluttered far,
There seemed to rise a princely palace blown
Of splendors lifting to the evening star—
And there he saw a face—it was his own.

Himself—a king—a king of old Cashmere!
An opal necklace on his naked chest—
A sacred sapphire shining large and clear
Snatched from off holy Vishnu’s holy breast.

While five-score hideous Ethiops with fans
Of ostrich plume bend mutely at their task
To cool the bosoms of the courtesans,
Stirring the amorous perfumes where they bask.

Then glory looms with forty conquered kings—
A hundred triune nations’ tribute proud—
´Mid acclamations and emblazonings
And western diadems suppliant in the crowd!

And stretching out his rough and calloused hand
Accustomed only to his rustic trade,
He caught the glittering marvel where it fanned,
Curious to study how the thing was made.

And home, arrived, perspiring and resolved
To undertake a deep experiment
Of all the mysteries therein involved;
To vivisect his vision he was bent.

And he dissected well, so artfully
He saw the battered, piecemeal thing succumb;
As with its life there vanished utterly
The fairy vision, and the song was dumb.

Today he passes with his locks anoint
With cardamom and aloes and they say,
Mocking his state—“His mind is out of joint;
He has forgot the fly he caught that day!”
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.

Doña Alda

Early rises Doña Alda; to her waist
Fall her golden tresses;
Smiles her gentle lips adoring,
Turns she down the green recesses
Where the flower banks are placed,
Where each blossom her addresses
A “good morning.”

Doña Alda never stays; with her hies the swallow,
Where the rays of sunshine follow—
Doña Alda fares along;
Round her swirls the leafy throng—
Fares she on, the brilliant glows
´Neath her lashes shining.

But—how cruel!—where she goes,
Skirt uplifted by the banks,
Lies a blossom white as snows
Soft beneath her foot repining—
“Doña Alda, many thanks.”
Francisca Julia da Silva.

The Vicious Circle

Glancing aloft the firefly made its moan:
“Would only I were like yon radiant star
Burning its taper in the blue afar!”
While sighed the star: “Oh, would my ray were thrown
As is the silvery suffusion sown
Around some Grecian columned window jar
Where lovers’ tender secrets whispered are!”
But o’er the sea the moon laments alone:

“Unhappy me! ah, would this heaving bar
Of radiance immortal I had known!”
While Sol repined amid his blazing car:
“This godlike noon is all too weary grown—
These azure spaces all my spirit mar—
Why was the firefly’s flicker not my own?”
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.

Serenade of Romeo

The host of stars is trailing
Out across the skies
With lily whiteness veiling
The heavens from mine eyes.

In vain my sight is tracing
Through all night’s halidom
Till thou, thy window gracing,
Shalt come.
Olavo Bilac.