The Ship, Solid and Black - Juan Ramón Jimenez

The ship, solid and black,
enters the clear blackness
of the great harbour.
                              Quiet and cold.
                                           —The people waiting
are still asleep, dreaming,
and warm, far away and still stretched out in this
dream, perhaps . . .

   How real our watch is, beside the dream
of doubt the others had! How sure it is, compared
to their troubled dream about us!
                                                 Quiet. Silence.
Silence which in breaking up at dawn
will speak differently.

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Juan Ramón Jimenez (1881 - 1958) Spain
Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1956
Translated by Robert Bly