JOAQUÍN ARCADIO PAGAZA (1839-1918)

Bishop of Vera Cruz, Mexico, was a poet of the classic school. Many of his Castilian sonnets are much admired, although he is chiefly remembered as the translator into Spanish of the famous Latin poem Rusticatio mexicana by the Jesuit Rafael Landivar (1731-1793), a work sharing, with Balbuena's Grandeza mexicana, the merit of fixing the classical style of letters in Hispanic America.





TWILIGHT

Slowly the sun descends at fall of night,
And rests on clouds of amber, rose and red;
The mist upon the distant mountains shed
Turns to a rain of gold and silver light.

The evening star shines tremulous and bright
Through wreaths of vapor, and the clouds o'erhead
Are mirrored in the lake, where soft they spread,
And break the blue of heaven's azure height.

Bright grows the whole horizon in the west
Like a devouring fire; a golden hue
Spreads o'er the sky, the trees, the plains that shine.
The bird is singing near its hidden nest
Its latest song, amid the falling dew,
Enraptured by the sunset's charm divine.






IN THE NIGHT

It seems like noon, so bright the lustre shed
On the damp forest by the moon's white glow.
The breeze scarce moves yon oak tree to and fro,
That mid a thousand others rears its head.

O'er Zempoala, on an azure bed,
The evening star rests just above the snow,
And dimly in the fields the brooklet's flow
Shows like a silver ribbon far outspread.

The heavens shine; the hoophoe's note of pain
Sounds on the mountain, and the echoes send
Its wail across the broad plains plaintively.
Phyllis, come follow me, for I would fain
Enjoy this night; shut up the cot, my friend;
Upon the hillside I will wait for thee.