Sweat Poem by Miguel Hernandez

Water drinks its paradise in the sea,
and sweat finds horizon, uproar, crest.
Sweat is a brimming salty tree,
a greedy surf.

To offer the land its trembling cup
sweat reaches from earth's farthest age,
feeds thirst and salt drop by drop,
to kindle life.

Sun's cousin, tear's brother, motion's child,
April to October, winter to summer,
it goes rolling through the field
in golden vines.

As peasants pass through dawn
behind the plough that uproots their sleep,
they each wear a silent workshirt brown
with mute sweat.

The workers' golden robe,
jewel of the hands and eyes as well,
through the haze the axilla's shower
spreads a fecund smell.

The land's flavour grows ripe and rich:
flakes that hardworking, pungent weeping yields,
manna of the men and fields,
my forehead's drink.

You who never feel stiff or sweat,
at leisure with no arms, music, pores,
will never feel the open pores' wet
halo, or the power of the bulls.

You will live stinking, die snuffed out:
fiery beauty takes up life in the heels
of bodies whose working limbs shift about
like constellations.

Comrades, surrender your foreheads to work:
sweat, with its sword of tasty crystal,
with its sticky flood, makes you transparent,
lucky, equal.