The Black Heralds
by Cesar Vallejo
You get knocks in life, so vicious. . . . It beats me!
Blows as if from God's hate; as if under their rain,
the backwash of everything you've suffered
stagnates in your soul. . . . It beats me!
Not many; but you get them. . . . They open up dark sluices
in the fiercest face and strongest back.
Perhaps they're the mounts of the barbarian Attilas;
or the black heralds sent to us by Death.
They're the falls to earth of the Christs of your soul,
of some worshipful faith that Destiny blasphemes.
Those bleeding blows are the crackings
of a loaf burning away on us in the oven door.
And man. . . . Wretched. . . wretched! He looks round,
as you do when a clap on the shoulder gets your attention;
he turns his mad eyes, and all the life he has lived
puddles, like a pool of guilt, in his gaze.
You get knocks in life, so vicious. . . . It beats me!
One of the greatest poets of the 20th century, Cesar Vallejo (Peruvian, 1892-1938) was born in an Andean village, the youngest of eleven children. Both grandmothers were Chimu Indians and both grandfathers Spanish Catholic priests. He grew up in a pious Christian household; later, in his poetry, he would put religious language to his own uses, often to express the erotic. As a young man he witnessed the exploitation of workers on a sugar plantation and thus began his commitment to leftist politics in Peru, Spain, and France. In the spring of 1938, after weeks of fever, with what may have been malaria, Cesar Vallejo died in Paris on Good Friday.
The poem "The Black Heralds" is from the collection of the same name, from an edition translated by Barry Fogden. The Black Heralds (Los Heraldos Negros) was the first of only three poetry collections published in the poet's lifetime.
by Cesar Vallejo
You get knocks in life, so vicious. . . . It beats me!
Blows as if from God's hate; as if under their rain,
the backwash of everything you've suffered
stagnates in your soul. . . . It beats me!
Not many; but you get them. . . . They open up dark sluices
in the fiercest face and strongest back.
Perhaps they're the mounts of the barbarian Attilas;
or the black heralds sent to us by Death.
They're the falls to earth of the Christs of your soul,
of some worshipful faith that Destiny blasphemes.
Those bleeding blows are the crackings
of a loaf burning away on us in the oven door.
And man. . . . Wretched. . . wretched! He looks round,
as you do when a clap on the shoulder gets your attention;
he turns his mad eyes, and all the life he has lived
puddles, like a pool of guilt, in his gaze.
You get knocks in life, so vicious. . . . It beats me!
One of the greatest poets of the 20th century, Cesar Vallejo (Peruvian, 1892-1938) was born in an Andean village, the youngest of eleven children. Both grandmothers were Chimu Indians and both grandfathers Spanish Catholic priests. He grew up in a pious Christian household; later, in his poetry, he would put religious language to his own uses, often to express the erotic. As a young man he witnessed the exploitation of workers on a sugar plantation and thus began his commitment to leftist politics in Peru, Spain, and France. In the spring of 1938, after weeks of fever, with what may have been malaria, Cesar Vallejo died in Paris on Good Friday.
The poem "The Black Heralds" is from the collection of the same name, from an edition translated by Barry Fogden. The Black Heralds (Los Heraldos Negros) was the first of only three poetry collections published in the poet's lifetime.
