I dreamt you took me
by Antonio MachadoEnglish version by Ivan M. Granger
Original Language Spanish
I dreamt you took me
up a white lane
through the heart of the green field
toward the blue of the high mountains,
toward the blue peaks,
one still morning.
I felt your hand in mine,
your perfect matching hand,
your girlish voice in my ear
like a new bell,
like the untouched bell
of a spring dawn.
It was your voice and your hand
in the dreams, so real, so true!...
Hope, live on -- who knows
what the earth can swallow up!
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In this poem as well as others, Machado is clearly speaking of an actual person -- his wife, who died very young. But he begins to see his dead wife as his divine beloved, ever present, ever calling to him, yet also just out of reach. Union, for him, can only be found in a mystical embrace.
In this way, his ache is elevated to something sacred, similar to that sought by the Troubadour poets who extolled the ideals of the unattainable courtly love several centuries earlier.
Substitute God or the Divine when he refers to his absent beloved, and see what meaning emerges...
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