Miguel Hernandez was a 20th-century poet born and raised in a family of low resourcea. He was a self-educated goatherd from the tiny Spanish town of Orihuela (Alicante) who tried hard to be accepted among his older contemporaries, and struggled against an unfavourable environment to build up his intellectual education. At school, he became a friend of Ramón Sijé, a well-educated boy who lent and recommended books to Hernandez, and whose death would inspire one of his most famous poem, Elegy (see below).
Deeply admired by poets from Lorca to Neruda, the poems of Miguel Hernandez beam with a gentleness of heart. Lorca wrote to the young poet in 1933, telling him to stop struggling to get along in a ‘circle of literary pigs’. From his early formalism, paying homage to Gongora and Quevedo, to the final poems, which are passionate and bittersweet, Hernandez’ work is a dazzling reminder that force can never defeat spirit, and that courage is its own reward. Neruda called him ‘a great master of language… a wonderful poet’.
Hernandez died of tuberculosis, imprisoned due to his active participation on the Republican side in the Spanish civil war: he was only 31. His last book, Cancionero y romancero de ausencias, was published after his death, and is a collection of the poems he wrote in prison, some written in rudimentary pieces of toilet paper, others preserved in letters to his wife, is considered one of the finest pieces of Spanish poetry of the 20th century.
Elegy (1936, included in the collection of poems El rayo que no cesa, The Unending Lightning)
Translation by Don Share
In Orihuela, his town and mine, like lightning
death took Ramón Sijé, whom I so loved
I wish I was the gardener whose tears
water the earth you fill and fertilize,
my closest friend, so suddenly.
With my useless grief nourishing the rains,
the snails, and the body’s organs,
I shall feed your heart
to the wasting poppies.
Grief bunches up in my ribs
until just breathing is painful.
A hard punch, a frozen fist,
an invisible, homicidal ax-blow,
a brutal shove has knocked you down.
Nothing gapes wider than my wound.
I cry over this disaster, over everything,
and feel your death more than my life.
I walk over the stubble of the dead,
and without warmth or consolation from anyone
I leave my heart behind, and mind my business.
Death flew off with you too soon,
dawn dawned too soon,
you were put into earth too soon.
I won’t forgive lovestruck death,
I won’t forgive this indifferent life,
I won’t forgive the earth, or anything.
In my hands a torrent of rocks
is brewing, lightning, vicious axes,
thirsting and starved for catastrophe.
I want to carve up the earth with my teeth,
I want to break up the earth chunk by chunk
in dry fiery mouthfuls.
I want to mine the earth till I find you,
and can kiss your noble skull,
ungag and revive you.
You’ll come back to my orchard, and my fig tree:
high up in the blossoms your soul
will flutter its wings, gathering
the wax and honey of angelic hives.
You’ll come back to the plow’s lullaby
of lovestruck farmhands.
You’ll bring light to my darkened face,
and your blood will have to pulse back and forth
between your bride and the bees.
My greedy lovesick voice
calls your heart, now crumpled velvet,
to a field of frothy almond sprays.
I call you to come to the flying souls
of the milky blossoms because
we have so many things to talk about,
my friend, my very best friend.
Elegía (1936, incluído en el libro de poemas El rayo que no cesa)
En Orihuela, su pueblo y el mío, se me ha muerto como el rayo Ramón Sijé, con quien tanto quería
Yo quiero ser llorando el hortelano
de la tierra que ocupas y estercolas,
compañero del alma, tan temprano.
Alimentando lluvias, caracolas
y órganos mi dolor sin instrumento,
a las desalentadas amapolas
daré tu corazón por alimento.
Tanto dolor se agrupa en mi costado,
que por doler me duele hasta el aliento.
Un manotazo duro, un golpe helado,
un hachazo invisible y homicida,
un empujón brutal te ha derribado.
No hay extensión más grande que mi herida,
lloro mi desventura y sus conjuntos
y siento más tu muerte que mi vida.
Ando sobre rastrojos de difuntos,
y sin calor de nadie y sin consuelo
voy de mi corazón a mis asuntos.
Temprano levantó la muerte el vuelo,
temprano madrugó la madrugada,
temprano estás rodando por el suelo.
No perdono a la muerte enamorada,
no perdono a la vida desatenta,
no perdono a la tierra ni a la nada.
En mis manos levanto una tormenta
de piedras, rayos y hachas estridentes
sedienta de catástrofes y hambrienta.
Quiero escarbar la tierra con los dientes,
quiero apartar la tierra parte a parte
a dentelladas secas y calientes.
Quiero minar la tierra hasta encontrarte
y besarte la noble calavera
y desamordazarte y regresarte.
Volverás a mi huerto y a mi higuera:
por los altos andamios de las flores
pajareará tu alma colmenera
de angelicales ceras y labores.
Volverás al arrullo de las rejas
de los enamorados labradores.
Alegrarás la sombra de mis cejas,
y tu sangre se irán a cada lado
disputando tu novia y las abejas.
Tu corazón, ya terciopelo ajado,
llama a un campo de almendras espumosas
mi avariciosa voz de enamorado.
A las aladas almas de las rosas
del almendro de nata te requiero,
que tenemos que hablar de muchas cosas,
compañero del alma, compañero.
In 1972 Joan Manuel Serrat released an album with songs based on poems by Miguel Hernandez:
