DISTANT
IV
Cape jasmines. Night is all suffused
With meditations gray.
About me, pure and sad the scents
Of impossible jasmines play.
Thy snow-white thoughts, like perfume, charm
My sadness all away.
Cape jasmines. And the night is filled
With meditations gray.
The perfume still is telling me
What thou didst never say.
Juan Guzmán Cruchaga
Translation by George Dundas Craig