Poetas de la Gran Guerra: Robert Graves

Nuestros lectores podrán leer la versión traducida al español por Rolando Costa Picazo en la sección Traductores de la edición papel del número 9 de La balandra.

The Morning before the Battle

Today, the fight: my end is very soon,
And sealed the warrant limiting my hours:
I knew it walking yesterday at noon
Down a deserted garden full of flowers.
… Carelessly sang, pinned roses on my breast,
Reached for a cherry-bunch—and then, then, Death
Blew through the garden from the north and east
And blighted every beauty with chill breath.

I looked, and ah my wraith before me stood,
His head all battered in by violent blows:
The fruit between my lips to clotted blood
Was transubstantiate, and the pale rose
Smelt sickly, till it seemed through a swift tear-flood
That dead men blossomed in the garden-close

(Poema perteneciente al libro Tierra de nadie: los poetas ingleses de la Gran Guerra, que será publicado en Buenos Aires por el sello Miño y Dávila, en el próximo mes de noviembre, con traducciones de Rolando Costa Picazo).