La novia ausente

Sometimes I go over those hours
when I was a student and you were the beloved
who with your smiles scattered stars
to all the young men in that neighborhood.
Ah! the warm nights... Ah! the fantasy
of our happy twenties,
when only your laughter was heard
and I didn't have my gray hair.

We walked arm in arm
and you sighed
because very close
I told you: 'My dear...
do you see how the moon
tangles in the pines
and its silver light
kisses you on the temple?'
To the rare spell
of night and mignonette
the leaves trembled
in the park, as well,
and you asked me
to recite for you
this 'Sonatina'
that Rubén dreamed of:
(Recited:)
'The princess is sad! What's wrong with the princess?
Sighs escape from her strawberry mouth.
She has lost her laughter, she has lost her color...
The princess is pale on her golden chair,
the keyboard of her sonorous harpsichord is silent
and in a glass, forgotten, a flower faints.'

What elves achieved what no longer exists?
What bony hand was spinning my woes?
And what proud sorrow today has made me so sad,
sad like the echo of cathedrals?
Ah!... I know, I know... It was the absent girlfriend,
the one who, when I was a student, loved me.
Who, upon dying, I left a kiss on her forehead
because she was cold, because she was leaving me.