Dregs (1918)
by César Vallejo, translated from Spanish by Wikisource

From the collection The Black Heralds (Los heraldos negros)

1833699Dregs1918César Vallejo

This evening it’s raining like never before; and,
my heart, I don’t feel like going on with life.

This evening is sweet. Why shouldn’t it be?
It’s dressed up in grace and sorrow; dressed like a woman.

This evening it’s raining in Lima. And I remember
the cruel caverns of my ingratitude;
my block of ice on its poppy,
stronger than her “Don’t be like this!”

My violent black flowers, and the savage
and enormous stoning; and the glacial distance.
And with burning oils, the silence of her dignity
will mark the final point.

That’s why this evening, like never before,
I’m going with this recluse, with this heart.

And others pass by; and seeing me so sad,
they take a little of you
in the harsh wrinkle of my deep pain.

This evening it’s raining, it’s raining a lot. And
my heart, I don’t feel like going on with life!


 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1938, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 85 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, which allows free use, distribution, and creation of derivatives, so long as the license is unchanged and clearly noted, and the original author is attributed.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse