Gabriela Mistral Poems

Let us go now into the forest.
Trees will pass by your face,
and I will stop and offer you to them,
but they cannot bend down.
...

Sleep, sleep, my beloved,
without worry, without fear,
although my soul does not sleep,
although I do not rest.
...

Never, never again?
Not on nights filled with quivering stars,
or during dawn's maiden brightness
or afternoons of sacrifice?
...

The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!
...

I feel my heart melting
in the mildness like candles:
my veins are slow oil
and not wine,
...

A crippled child
Said, “How shall I dance?”
Let your heart dance
We said.
...

I. You shall love beauty, which is the shadow of God
over the Universe.
...

A child's tiny feet,
Blue, blue with cold,
How can they see and not protect you?
Oh, my God!
...

And we go on and on,
Neither sleeping nor awake,
Towards the meeting, unaware
That we are already there.
...

She speaks in her way of her savage seas
With unknown algae and unknown sands;
She prays to a formless, weightless God,
Aged, as if dying.
...