So Machado writes of himself. He was born in the eighties, has been a teacher of French in government schools in Soria and Baeza and at present in Segovia—all old Spanish cities very mellow and very stately—and has made the migration to Paris customary with Spanish writers and artists. He says in the Poema de un Día:
Here I am, already a teacher
of modern languages, who yesterday
was a master of the gai scavoir
and the nightingale's apprentice.
He has published three volumes of verse, Soledades ("Solitudes"), Campos de Castilla ("Fields of Castile"), and Soledades y Galerías ("Solitudes and Galleries"), and recently a government institution, the Residencia de Estudiantes, has published his complete works up to date.
The following translations are necessarily inadequate, as the poems depend very much on modulations of rhythm and on the expressive fitting together of words impossible to render in a foreign language. He uses rhyme comparatively little, often substituting assonance in accordance with the peculiar traditions of Spanish prosody. I have made no attempt to imitate his form exactly.
I
Yes, come away with me—fields of Soria,
quiet evenings, violet mountains,