Little Viennese Waltz
In Vienna are ten young
ladies,
a shoulder for death to
cry on,
and a forest of mounted
doves.
There’s a fragment of
tomorrow
in the museum of frost.
There’s a parlor with a
thousand windows.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz with its
silent mouth.
This waltz, this waltz,
this waltz, this waltz
of itself, of brandy and
death
that dips its tail in the
sea.
I want you, I want you, I
want you
with the armchair and the
dead book,
through the melancholy
hallway,
in the dark attic of the iris,
in our bed of the moon,
in the dance the turtle
dreams.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz with its
shattered waist.
In Vienna there are four
mirrors
where your voice and the
echoes play.
There’s a death for piano
that paints the boys blue.
There are beggars on tiled
rooftops.
There are fresh garlands
of tears.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz that dies
in my arms.
Because I want you, I want
you, my love,
in the attic where the
children play,
dreaming the aged lights
of Hungary
through the buzz of a tepid
afternoon,
watching sheep and iris of
snow
through the dark silence
of your brow.
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this waltz of “I want
you always”.
In Vienna I’ll dance with
you
in a disguise that holds
the river’s headwaters.
See my hyacinth shores!
My mouth left behind
between your legs,
my soul in photographs and
white lilies,
and in the dark waves of
your stride
I want, my love, my love,
to leave behind
violin and sepulcher, the
ribbons of the waltz.
Federico García Lorca,
“Pequeño vals Vienés”
Translation by Jack
Hayes
© 2017
Image links to its
source on Wiki Commons:
Liebespaar
(Selbstdarstellung mit Wally) Lovers (Self-portrait with Wally): Egon Schiele - gouache and pencil on paper;
1914 or 1915.
Public domain
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