Translation:The Black Heralds (1918)/Love

by César Vallejo

 
Love, you won’t return anymore to my dead eyes,
and my idealistic heart so mourns you.
My open chalices await
your hosts of autumn and wines of dawn.

Love, divine cross, water my deserts
with your astral blood that dreams and cries.
Love, you won’t return anymore to my dead eyes
that fear and long for your auroral tears.

Love, I don’t love you when you’re far away
swamped in the make-up of joyful drunk woman,
or in the fragile and snub-nosed features of a woman.

Love, come without flesh, from a darkening Ichor;
and may I, like God, be the man
who loves and begets without sensual pleasure!