Jose Santos Chocano. The Magnolia. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The Magnolia

By José Santos Chocano


From “Peruvian Poems” Translated by John Pierrepont Rice DEEP in the wood, of scent and song the daughter,
Perfect and bright is the magnolia born;
White as a flake of foam upon still water,
White as soft fleece upon rough brambles torn.

Hers is a cup a workman might have fashioned	5
Of Grecian marble in an age remote.
Hers is a beauty perfect and impassioned,
As when a woman bares her rounded throat.

There is a tale of how the moon, her lover,
Holds her enchanted by some magic spell;	10
Something about a dove that broods above her,
Or dies within her breast—I cannot tell.

I cannot say where I have heard the story,
Upon what poet’s lips; but this I know:
Her heart is like a pearl’s, or like the glory	15
Of moonbeams frozen on the spotless snow.