1. Aaron Moore
  2. Memorization

Table of Contents

  1. English Translation
  2. Spanish Original
Ballad Come back, called a guitar to me, near Rancagua, in autumn. All the poplars wore the color and tingle of bells. It was cold and the sky spread amply over the sadness. A drunk came into the canteen, stumbling under his load of grapes, which filled his hat to the brim and were spilling out of his eyes. He had mud on his boots. He had trampled on the effigy of autumn, and had flattened all it's yellow fingers. I never went back to the prairies. But hardly do the hours ring out, halting and dishonored, than there falls across my heart the buttons and the smile; when they have stopped being clear, the numerals of forgetting, that guitar still calls me, and now, so much time has passed that perhaps nothing exists, neither the prairie nor the autumn; and I would arrive, of a sudden, like a ghost in the great void, with its hat full of grapes, asking about the guitar; and since nobody would be there, no one would understand anything, and I would trail back, closing that door which does not exist. by Pablo Neruda
tr. Alastair Reid
Balada Vuelve, me dijo una guitarra cerca de Rancagua, en otoño. Todo los álamos tenían color y temblor de campana: hacía frío y era redondo el cielo sobre la tristeza. Entró a la cantina un borracho tambaleando bajo las uvas que le llenaban el sombrero y le salían por los ojos. Tenía barro en los zapatos, había pisado la estatua del otoño y había aplastado todas sus manos amarillas. Yo nunca volví a las praderas. Pero apenas suenan las horas cuando al corazón se le caen los botones y la sonrisa, cuando dejan de ser celestes los numerales del olvido, aquella guitarra me llama, y ya ha pasado tanto tiempo que ya tal vez no exista nada, ni la pradera ni el otoño, y yo llegaría de pronto como un fantasma en el vacío con el sombrero lleno de uvas preguntando por la guitarra, y como allí no habría nadie nadie entendaría nada y yo volvería cerrando aquella puerta que no existe. de Pablo Neruda

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