Spanish-English translation by Christian Cowper

Like much of Lorca's work, it lives in the gap between poem and song, its meter highly rhythmic compared to contemporary poetry in English.

Today I feel upon my heartstrings a vague trembling of stars but I find my way is lost in a soul of mist and fog. The light tramples on my wings and the pain I call my sadness makes wet and cold my mem’ries in a fountain of ideas.

The roses all are white so white just like my sickness but the roses are not white from the snow that lies atop them. Before they wore a rainbow. Snow falls also on the soul. And the snow-white souls have flakes of kisses and have stages that have sunk into the shadows or the light of he who thought them. The snow falls from the roses but stays still where the soul dwells as the clawing of the years makes with it a veil.

ENGLISH Autumn Song

translated by Christian Cowper

Will the snow not melt and thaw when death’s hand comes to claim us? Or will there be more snowfall and other perfect roses?

Will we find that peace be with us as Christ to us has promised? or will we never see the solution to the problem?

And if our love deceives us? Whose life will be salvation if we sink into the twilight with the scientific knowledge That Good may not exist and that Evil beats close by it?

If hope turns itself off and Babel then commences what torch will light the way through the roads we walk on earth?

SPANISH Si el azul es un ensueño, ¿qué será de la inocencia? ¿qué será del corazón si el Amor no tiene flechas?

Y si muerte es la muerte, ¿qué será de las poetas y de las cosas dormidas que ya nadie las recuerda? ¡Oh sol de las esperanzas! iAgua Clara! iLuna nueva! ¡Corazones de los niños! ¡Almas rudas de las piedras! Hoy siento en el corazón un vago temblor de estrellas y todas las rosas son tan blancas como mi pena.

Aifric Doherty, Cassandra is screaming