Tag Archives: Eugene Delacroix

How Sleep the Brave

Liberty Leading the People. Eugène Delacroix. 1830.
Liberty Leading the People. Eugène Delacroix. 1830.

 

How Sleep the Brave

William Collins

 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest

By all their country’s wishes blest!

When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,

Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,

She there shall dress a sweeter sod

Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.

 

By fairy hands their knells is rung;

By forms unseen their dirges sung;

There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,

To bless the turf that wraps their clay;

And Freedom shall while repair

To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

Los potros

Horse Frightened by a Storm. Eugene Delacroix. 1824.

Los potros

José Euctasio Rivera

 

Atropellados por la Pampa suelta

los raudos potros en febril disputa.

hacen silbar sobre la sorda ruta

los huracanes en su crin revuelta.

 

Atrás dejando la llanura envuelta

en Polvo, alargan la cerviz enjuta

Y a su carrera retumbante y bruta

cimbran los pinos y la palma esbelta.

 

Ya cuando cruzan el austral peñasco

vibra un relincho por las altas rocas;

entonces paran el triunfante casco,

 

respolan roncos, ante el sol violento

Y alzando en grupo las cabezas locas

Oyen llegar el retrasado viento.

 

This poem by the Colombian poet and lawyer José Rivera (best known for his national epic, La vorágine, or The Vortex) is featured on Wrestle with the Angel in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15-October 15.

“Los potros” (“The Colts”) describes a hurricane as a herd of swift young horses. They leave the land in the dust of their wake, vibrate the high rocks with their whinnies, and toss their “crazy heads.” Their triumphant advance is prevented only by the “violent sun.” The poet says of their defeated snorts, “Come hear the wind delayed.”