Resignation

Resignation

By José María Pemán -- Spanish poet (1897 - 1981)

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

Most blessed be You, oh Lord!
for Your kindness without bound
because out of love You place 
along with thistles of throes
roses of resignedness.

How sad my wandering is,
concealed, I carry in my bosom
of my repentance a groan
but carry in my lips a song
not to let my sadness show.

Only You, my God and Lord,
You, who hurts me out of love
You, who with an immense love
tries with so much greater pain 
those souls who You love the most

You alone will get to know 
that I only want to tell
my secret suffering about
to whom it can understand
and is able to console.

Most blessed be You, oh Lord!
for Your kindness without bound
because out of love You place 
along with thistles of throes
roses of resignedness.

The pain that should ever come
will be in good time well received
Let it come, since God so wishes.
What does seeing myself hurt matter
if God is the one who hurts me?

I do not complain, my Lord,
I know suffering pain is joy
if one suffers it for love,
an affliction is delight
if it's endured out of love.

I want to suffer, my Lord,
I want out of love to enjoy
the sweetness of the distress
make an altar of my life,
of love to make sacrifice.

To live without woes of love
is a sad and somber living
like the water of a river
which, finding no trees or flowers,
through a barren wasteland flows.

Life with artificial happiness
I do not envy you, no,
that the day my life were so
trembling of horror I'd say:

God has my life but forgotten!
Do not flee, passions and torments
with the frailness of a coward,
nor seek after loves not honest
which die just as do the flowers
in the sinkng of the nightfall.

Knowing how to suffer and making
the soul most robust and sturdy,
is what matters most to know:
the science of bearing pain
is the science of good living.

That is why, my God and Lord,
because it's for love You hurt me
because with an immense love
You try with much greater pain 
those souls that You love the most,
because suffering is healing
the wounds afflicting the heart
because I know You shall give me
consolation and resignedness
to the measure of my pain,
for Your goodness and your love,
since You will it and command it,
because all my pain is Yours...
Blessed be the hand, my Lord,
with which You have deigned to hurt me!

In praise of the simple life

In praise of the simple life

by José María Pemán, Spanish poet (1897 - 1981)

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope (revised August 16,2018)

Agitated life, mad frenzy of unfettered ambition ...
how wrong does life appreciate
he who understands it this way!

This life is an icy wind   
which goes on withering flowers;
don't water it with your sweats
nor till it with agitation;

This, life does not deserve:

since such a boundless ambition
is a plant which fails to blossom
in the gardens of our being.

Foolish he who strives and labors 

arduously craving a fortune:
earn today´s bread... and let God
take care of what comes tomorrow!

Oh life simple and serene, 
I want to hold tight to you,
since you are the only seed
which makes flowers blossom here.

A quiet and healthy conscience 
is the treasure that I yearn for;
nothing do I expect or ask for
to get me through past tomorrow.

And so, if that day gives me something,
even if little, perhaps,
it'll always seem to be more
than what I could have asked for.

I do not aspire to glory 
nor senseless ambition moves me:
at the dawn of every morning,
the only things I ask God for:

are, a clean house where to lodge,
some fresh bread to have to eat,
a good book to have to read,
and a Crucifix to pray;

since he who exerts himself and worries,
nothing finds that can satiate him,
but the one who less requires
has more than he who has plenty.

Want to enjoy as much as I can 
and, with wisdom and restraint,
nickel by nickel to spend
that treasure which is my life;

but I don't want ever to be 
as he who amasses gold 
but enjoys his treasure not 
for the sake of hoarding more.

I want to enjoy without passion. 
to await with no distress, 
and suffer with resignation, 
pass away in peacefulness, 

and when my last day should come, 
I want to reflect and say: 
"I lived as I would have lived 
if I were to live again; 

I lived as a pilgrim does 
who, disregarding his pains, 
goes by, picking up the flowers
that he can find on his way;

singing, I have left behind 
the life that I have traversed;
asked for not much but got more 
than the little I asked for; 

if nobody envied me 
in the mad and frenzied world, 
in that world neither did I 
envy anyone at all."

Honors, I do not pursue, 
since life is a heartless tyrant 
which bestows with honors now 
him who dishonors tomorrow.

I don't want honors in titles, 
live nurturing no ambitions, 
as this honor is one which 
cannot be removed from me.

I have resolved to reject 
all unfettered ambition, 
and not to demand from life 
what it cannot give to me.

I have resolved not to run
after possessions not sating:
I carry in my soul a treasure 
I cannot afford to lose 

and keep it, since I expect 
that confident I shall die 
in carrying it unbroken
to the Lord, who gave it me.

Prayer to the Light

Prayer to the Light  

by José María Pemán  

Spanish poet (1897-1981)

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

My Lord: I know that in the limpid morning
of this world, Thy generous right hand
the light made before anything else
so that all things their figure could display.

I know that they reflect Thee,
the immortal outlines of the rose and lily
better than the inebriated and disturbing
music made by the winds up in the welkin.

That is why I proclaim Thee in the cold
thinking, exactly to the truth subjected
and on the bank, without the river stirring

for all this, still and quiet, I adore Thee 
and for this, oh my Lord, my pain and sorrow
so they can reach Thee, turned into a sonnet.

In the silence of the evening

In the silence of the evening

by José María Pemán (Spanish poet, 1897 – 1981)

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

We, with no breath, or voice, or motion
looked at each other, quiet and in silence
as two statues of marble, overtaken
by the most solemn quietness of the moment.

The evening waned
and even the soft breeze that glided,
caressing the sweet flowers,
asleep it fell. All became silent
so that our souls alone could talk to each other

And so they talked, perhaps, and shared together
their deepest, hidden, and most profound secrets
while the surrounding fields set out
to lose themselves in slumber.

The stirring creeks went quiet
so went the limpid fountain,
the singing birds, the orchards,
the shepherds and the cowbells...
And on your face my kisses 
like a bee's din among the flowers sounded!