Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado

I listen to the songs

I listen to the songs— in such old meters!— that the children sing when they play together. They pour out in choirs their dreamy souls as the stonefountains pour out their waters: there is eternal merriment —a bit monotonous— not really joyful, and grief very ancient, not really serious. They pour out sad things, sad things about love and tales from the past. On the children's lips as they sing the history is tangled but the pain is clear; so the clear water tells its garbled tale of loves long ago that never get said. Playing in the shadows of the ancient square, the children go on singing . The stone fountain was pouring out its eternal fountain of story. [«5l 5 Cantaban los ninos canciones ingenuas, de un algo que pasa y que nunca llega: la historia confusa y clara la pena. Seguia su cuento la fuente serena; borrada la historia, contaba la pena. [86] The children were singing their innocent songs, of something which is in motion yet never arrives: the history is tangled but the pain is clear. The peaceable fountain continues telling its things; the history lost, the pain has found words. [«7] ...