Now it is the weekend, so we will sing:
Yo soy aquél que ayer no más decía
el verso azul y la canción profana,
en cuya noche un ruiseñor había
que era alondra de luz por la mañana.
El dueño fui de mi jardín de sueño,
lleno de rosas y de cisnes vagos;
el dueño de las tórtolas, el dueño
de góndolas y liras en los lagos;
y muy siglo diez y ocho y muy antiguo
y muy moderno; audaz, cosmopolita;
con Hugo fuerte y con Verlaine ambiguo,
y una sed de ilusiones infinita….
R.D., 1905. Read the whole text at a wonderful site of poems on poetry.
I thought of this poem because in addition to being a conservative canon defender I have an excessive interest in technology. Like the poet, I am “very eighteenth century and very ancient / and very modern, audacious, cosmopolitan.”
There are many amazing and justly famous lines in this poem, such as:
sentimental, sensible, sensitiva
una sensual hiperestesia humana
de la sagrada selva la armonía
and
Bosque ideal que lo real complica.
When I was a small child and Luis Monguió was already old we read this poem in his class. Don Luis had a very large spirit. I keep forgetting that many of the entities I deal with now have not had the chance to work with people like this.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I like the way he gives priority of the work over criticism of the work. That seems right to me. It is the equivalent, in a way, of giving priority over the spirit of living over and above the study of living, or working for a living and so on.
“It is the equivalent, in a way, of giving priority over the spirit of living over and above the study of living…”
Yes indeed!
That sonnet that begins “Yo persigo” is also really something. Thanks for pointing me here. I lived on a Rubén Darío street once upon a time…
Oh, an RD street – how lovely. I love “yo persigo” too … (which, of course, we also studied in LM’s class) … “y el cuello del gran cisne blanco que me interroga.”