One Night
by Juan Ramon Jimenez

The ancient spiders with a flatten spread
Their misty marvels through
the withered flowers.
The windows, by the moonlight
pierced, wound shed
their trembling garlands pale
across the bowers.

The balconies looked over to the south;
the night was one immortal and serene;
From field afar the newborn spring times’ mouth
wafted a breath of sweetness o’er the scene.

How silent! Grief had hushed its spectral moan
Among the shadowy roses of the sward;
Love was a fable–in shadow & overthrow
Trooped back in my rides from oblivion’s ward.

The garden’s voice was all–empires had died–
The azure stars in languor having known
the sorrows all the outcries provide,
With silver crowned me there, remote and lone.

One night appeared in Hispanic Anthology (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920).
Juan Ramon Jimenez was a Spanish poet awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956. His many works include
La Soledad Sonora (Revista de Archivos, 1911) among others.
He died on May 29, 1958.