Amor de Ciudad Grande

The times are throaty and fast:
Voice runs like light; on high needle
Like a ship dashed on a dreadful reef
The lightning sinks, and in a light boat
Man, like winged, cleaves the air.
So love, without pomp or mystery
Dies, barely born, from being sated!
The city is a cage of dead doves
And avid hunters! if men's chests
Are broken, and the flesh
Broken falls to the ground, only
Crushed strawberries are seen inside!
The times are throaty and fast:
Love is made standing in the streets, amidst the dust
Of salons and squares. the flower dies
The day it is born. that trembling virgin
Who before gave her pure hand to death
The pure hand that has never known a young man;
The joy of fearing; that the heart
Leaps from the chest; the ineffable
Pleasure of deserving; the pleasant fright
Of walking quickly straight
To the beloved's home, and at its doors,
Like a happy child, burst into tears;
And that gaze, from our love to the fire,
Seeing the roses take on color.
Come on, these are lies! then, who has
Time to be noble? it is good to feel,
Like a golden vase or sumptuous cloth,
A gentle lady in a magnate's house!
Or if one is thirsty, the arm is extended
And to the passing cup, it is drained!
Then, the turbid cup rolls to the dust,
And the skillful taster, chest stained
With an invisible blood, continues happily,
Crowned with myrtles, on his way!
Bodies are no longer but waste,
And graves and rags! and souls
Are not like rich fruit on the tree
In whose soft skin the sweet syrup
Overflows in its ripe maturity,
But fruit in the square that to brutal
Blows the rough farmer ripens!
This is the age of dry lips!
Of sleepless nights! of life
Squeezed in unripe! what is missing
That happiness is missing? like a hare
Startled, the spirit hides,
Trembling fleeing from the laughing hunter,
Like in a wooded grove, in our chest;
And desire, from the arm of fever,
Like a rich hunter, roams the grove.
I am frightened by the city! it is all full
Of cups to be emptied, oh hollow cups!
I am afraid, woe is me! that this wine
May be poison, and in my veins then
Like a vengeful spirit, sink its teeth!
I am thirsty, for a wine that on earth
Is not known to be drunk! I have not suffered
Enough yet, to break the wall
That separates me, oh pain! from my vineyard!
Take it, you vile tasters
Of human wines, those cups
Where the juice of lily is drunk in large sips
Without compassion and without fear!
Take it! I am honest
Take it! and I am afraid!
Take it!