José Santos Chocano

From “Peruvian Poems”

Translated by John Pierrepont Rice

DEEP in the wood, of scent and song the daughter,

Perfect and bright is the magnolia born;

White as a flake of foam upon still water,

White as soft fleece upon rough brambles torn.

Hers is a cup a workman might have fashioned

Of Grecian marble in an age remote.

Hers is a beauty perfect and impassioned,

As when a woman bares her rounded throat.

There is a tale of how the moon, her lover,

Holds her enchanted by some magic spell;

Something about a dove that broods above her,

Or dies within her breast—I cannot tell.

I cannot say where I have heard the story,

Upon what poet’s lips; but this I know:

Her heart is like a pearl’s, or like the glory

Of moonbeams frozen on the spotless snow.