José Santos Chocano

From “Peruvian Poems”

Translated by John Pierrepont Rice

THE WAY was black,

The night was mad with lightning; I bestrode

My wild young colt upon a mountain road.

And, crunching onward, like a monster’s jaws

His ringing hoof-beats their glad rhythm kept;

Breaking the glassy surface of the pools

Where hidden waters slept.

A million buzzing insects in the air

On droning wing made sullen discord there.

But suddenly, afar, beyond the wood,

Beyond the dark pall of my brooding thought,

I saw lights cluster like a swarm of wasps

Among the branches caught.

“The inn!” I cried, and on his living flesh

My broncho felt the lash and neighed with eagerness.

And all this time the cool and quiet wood

Uttered no sound, as though it understood.

Until there came to me upon the night

A voice so clear, so clear, so ringing sweet!—

A voice as of a woman, and her song

Dropped like soft music winging at my feet,

And seemed a sigh that, with my spirit blending,

Lengthened and lengthened out, and had no ending.

And through the empty silence of the night,

And through the quiet of the hills, I heard

That music; and the sounds the night wind bore me,

Like spirit voices from an unseen world,

Came drifting o’er me.

I curbed my horse, to catch what she might say:

“At night they come, and they are gone by day.”

And then another voice, with low refrain

And untold tenderness, took up the strain:

“Oh, love is but an inn upon life’s way—

At night they come, and they are gone by day,”

Their voices mingled in that wistful lay,

Then I dismounted and stretched out my length

Beside a pool, and while my mind was bent

Upon that mystery within the wood

My eyes grew heavy and my strength was spent.

And so I slept there, huddled in my cloak.

And now, when by untrodden paths I go

Through the dim forest, no repose I know

At any inn at nightfall, but apart

I sleep beneath the stars, for through my heart

Echoes the burden of that wistful lay:

“At night they come, and they are gone by day;

And love is but an inn upon life’s way.”

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