10 Examples of Modernist Poems

The modernist poems are those poetic compositions that belong to modernism, a literary movement that emerged at the end of the 19th century in Latin America and continued until 1920.

One of the objectives of this movement was to differentiate itself from other currents and literary movements by creating a completely new way of doing literature. The poems they were the most important literary texts of modernism, since they made outstanding inventions in terms of form, themes and procedures characteristic of the movement.

The authors of modernist poems are many and from different places in Latin America and Spain. Some of them are Rubén Darío (he wrote Blue, the first collection of poems of modernism), José Martí, Delmira Agustini, Manuel Machado, Aurora Cáceres and Amado Nervo.

Characteristics of modernist poems

examples of modernist poems

1. "The Old Age of Anacreon" by Leopoldo Lugones (Argentina)

The afternoon crowned him with roses.
His sweet verses, in divine chorus,
They floated away like golden pollen
On the wings of invisible butterflies.

They composed the mimes soft glosses,
The sonorous sea moaned softly,
Like a horned bull
Yoked to the chariot of the goddesses.

And more roses rained; and the forehead
Of the poet bow sweetly,
And a youthful warmth flowed through his veins.

He felt his hair full of flowers,
His trembling hands plunged into them…
And instead of roses he found lilies.

1. "The Gift" by Amado Nervo (Mexico)

Oh life, do you perhaps reserve a gift for me?
(Sunset. In the tower already sounds the prayer).
Oh life, do you perhaps reserve a gift for me?

The mournful wind moaned in the dry branches;
the twilight bleeds out in a vivid trail;
oh life, tell me what that final gift will be!

Will a great love be your best gift?
(Blue eyes, blooming lips!)
Oh what joy! What happiness if it were a great love!

Or will it be a great peace: the one you need
my poor soul, after so much pilgrimage with care?
Yes, perhaps a peace... an infinite peace!

…Or rather the enigma that I walk in pursuit of?
will lighten up, lighting up like a star in the
deep skies, and then at last! Will I find God?

Oh life, that still winds this portion
of my dark days, prayer already sounds;
evening falls… Hurry up and bring me your gift!

1. "The sower of stars" Enrique González Martínez (Mexico)

And you will pass by, and when they see you they will say to themselves: “Which road
Are you following the sleepwalker? Ignore the murmur
You will go, loose the linen tunic in the air,
The white robe of disdain and pride.

They will accompany you just a few
Souls made of dreams... But at the end of the jungle,
Seeing before his eyes the wall of rocks,
They will say frightened: "Let's hope he comes back."

And you will climb alone the cracked paths;
Then comes the fantastic parade of landscapes,
And you will arrive alone to explore clouds
There where the peaks kiss the stars.

You will slowly go down a moonlit night
Sick, of sorrowful mysterious shadows,
Holding your hands and watering one by one,
With a gesture of gift, the luminous roses.

And they will look absorbed at the clarity of your footprints,
And the jargon of that human bunch will cry out:
"He is a thief of stars..." And your lavish hand
He will continue through life scattering stars...

1. "The Dream" by Delmira Agustini (Uruguay)

Over the sea that the dreaming skies portray
Raise my blue tower its silver capital

And I dream in the songs that sleep in my lyre.
When a vibrant bird of scarlet plumage
At the open window, she stops and looks at me:
-What are you doing? -he says- down there, it's spring! – inspire

Longing for sun, roses, caresses, life,
The magic word! The bird flies on.
I go down, unmoor my ivory yacht
And cut seas to joyous spring.
At my back, in the waves, lonely and austere
My blue tower stands tall like a long "Dream Bird"!

1. "Caupolican" by Rubén Darío (Nicaragua)

It is a formidable thing that the old race saw:
sturdy tree trunk on the shoulder of a champion
wild and battle-hardened, whose beefy mace
brandished the arm of Hercules, or the arm of Samson.

His hair for a helmet, his chest for a breastplate,
could such a warrior, from Arauco in the region,
Spearman of the woods, Nimrod who hunts all,
hamstring a bull, or strangle a lion.

He walked, he walked, he walked. He saw the light of day,
she saw the pale afternoon, she saw the cold night,
and always the tree trunk on the back of the titan.

«The Toqui, the Toqui!» cries the shaken caste.
He walked, he walked, he walked. The dawn said: "Enough",
and the high forehead of the great Caupolicán rose.

1. "I grow a white rose" by José Martí (Cuba)

Cultivate a white rose
in june like january
For the honest friend
who gives me his free hand.

And for the cruel one who rips me
the heart with which I live,
Thistle or nettle cultivation;
I grow the white rose.

1. “I am dreaming roads” by Antonio Machado (Spain)

I'm dreaming paths
pm. The hills
golden, the green pines,
the dusty oaks!…
Where will the path go?
I'm singing, traveler
along the trail...
-The afternoon is falling-.
"In my heart I had
»the thorn of a passion;
»I managed to rip it off my day,
"I no longer feel my heart."

And the whole field for a moment
he remains, dumb and gloomy,
meditating. the wind sounds
in the poplars of the river.

The afternoon gets darker,
and the road that winds
and faintly whitens,
it blurs and disappears.

My song cries again:
"Sharp golden thorn,
»who could feel you
»in the heart nailed».

1. "Nostalgia" by Jose Santos Chocano (Peru)

ten years ago
that I travel the world.
I have lived little!
I am very tired!

Whoever lives in a hurry does not really live:
he who has not taken root cannot bear fruit.

To be a river that runs, to be a cloud that passes,
leaving no traces or memories,
It is sad, and sadder for those who feel
cloud high, river deep.

I would like to be a tree, better than being a bird,
I would like to be log, better than being smoke,
and to the trip that tires
I prefer the terroir:
the native city with its steeples,
archaic balconies, old portals
and narrow streets, as if the houses
They don't want to be too far apart...
I'm on the shore
of a steep path.
I watch the road snake
that in each mountain turns a knot;
and then I understand that the road is long,
that the terrain is rough,
that the slope is arduous,
that the landscape withered…

Lord! I'm tired of traveling, I already feel
nostalgia, I already long to rest very close
of mine… They will all surround my seat
to tell my sorrows and triumphs;
and I, in the way that I traveled
a sticker album, I'll gladly tell
the thousand and one nights of my adventures
and I will end with this phrase of misfortune:

I have lived little! I am very tired!

1. "Ars" by Jose Asuncion Silva (Colombia)

The verse is a holy vessel. Just put in it
a pure thought,
in the depths of which seething images
like golden bubbles from an old dark wine!

There pour the flowers that in the continuous struggle,
the cold left the world,
delicious memories of times that do not return,
and spikenards drenched in dewdrops
so that the miserable existence embalms me
which of an unknown essence,
burning in the fire of the tender soul
a single drop of that supreme balm is enough!

1. "Imaginary Pilgrim Dove" by Ricardo Jaimes Freyre (Bolivian)

Pilgrim imaginary dove
that inflames the last loves;
soul of light, music and flowers
peregrine imaginary dove.

Fly over the lonely rock
that bathes the glacial sea of ​​sorrows;
There is, to your weight, a beam of brilliance,
on the grim lonely rock...

Fly over the lonely rock
peregrine dove, snowwing
like divine host, wing so light...

Like a snowflake; divine Wing,
snowflake, lily, host, mist,
peregrine imaginary dove…

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