SONNET
from the Spanish of Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola

  October dragged the dead vines down the path;
And, sullen with the great rains, lber rose-
Now suffering neither bank nor bridge he goes
And covers all the countryside with wrath.
  Moncayo, now as always, stands as one
Crowned with a snowy brow; we scarcely see
The sun rise in the east when suddenly
The thick earth hides it, and we have no sun.

  The sea and woods now feel the heavy rage
Of the north wind that locks in with his roar
Dwellers in ports and cabins on the coast.
  And Fabius, stretched out before the door
Of Thais, weeps for time that he has lost,
With shameful tears that lengthen into age.


THE NEMEAN LION
from the French of José María de Heredia

After the Conqueror goes into the wood
Following those great footsteps on the ground,
A single roar comes out-the only sound
From that embrace. The sun goes down for good.

Across the brambles and the tangled vines
The startled shepherd into Tiryns flees,
Then turns, to see against the nearest trees,
The great beast poised among the columbines.

He screams. Nemea's terror he has seen
Open his jaws against the bloody sky,
And the sparse mane, and fangs that rise too keen.

For in night's growing shadow there he sees
The frightful hide float over Hercules,
The mingled beast and hero, passing by.


FORGETFULNESS
from the French of José María de Heredia

The temple is in ruins on the height.
And death has mingled, in the savage grass,
The marble goddesses and gods of brass,
And lonely turf has covered them from sight.

Sometimes a single herdsman comes that way
And with his shell that breathes an old refrain
Fills timeless sea and sky with sound again,
His body black against the azure day.

Earth, the maternal, kind to the old god,
Each spring has made a new acanthus grow
About the crumbling capitals; but no-

Man, still indifferent to the ancient sod,
Hears, without trembling, from the night's slow deep
The Sea, that mourns the sirens, sink and weep.

We are grateful to Janet Lewis for supplying photographs of the young Yvor Winters. Winters's Collected Poems will be published this summer.