My philosophy is fundamentally sad, but I’m not a sad man, and I don’t believe I sadden anyone else. In other words, the fact that I don’t put my philosophy into practice saves me from its evil spell, or, rather, my faith in the human race is stronger then my intellectual analysis of it; there… Continue reading Antonio Machado
And will that spellbound world die with you where memory holds those breaths, the purest in your life, the white shadow of your first love, the voice that went to your heart, the hand you wanted to hold in dream, and every love that touched your soul, the profound sky? Is your world to die… Continue reading Antonio Machado
Lord, life gets me tired, my throat is sore from shouting over the seas. Sea voices deafen me. Lord, life gets me tired, the universe drowns me. Lord, you left me alone, solitary with the sea. — Antonio Machado, from “Three Songs Sent to Unamuno in 1913,” Border of a Dream: Selected Poems, transl. by… Continue reading Antonio Machado
Will the spellbound world die with you where memory hangs on to clean breaths in life, the white shadow of a first love, a voice that struck your heart, the hand you wanted to grab in dreams, and every love that fell in the soul down to the bottom sky? Will your world die with… Continue reading Antonio Machado
Last Night As I Was Sleeping Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous error!— that a spring was breaking out in my heart. I said: Along which secret aqueduct, Oh water, are you coming to me, water of a new life that I have never drunk? Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous… Continue reading Antonio Machado
You know the secret passageways of the soul, the roads that dreams take, and the calm evening where they go to die… . — Antonio Machado, from “It Doesn’t Matter Now if the Golden Wine,” Times Alone: Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press 1983)
Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvellous error!— that a spring was breaking out in my heart. — Antonio Machado, from “Last Night as I Was Sleeping,” Times Alone: Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1983)
Is my soul asleep? Have those beehives that work in the night stopped? And the water- wheel of thought, is it going around now, cups empty, carrying only shadows? No, my soul is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its eyes wide open far-off things, and listens… Continue reading Antonio Machado
The Vale of Soul-Making 