The sad sea – Antonio Machado

A steel sea of ​​gray waves beats
inside the rough gnawed walls
of the old port. The north wind blows
and ripples the sea. The sad sea lulls
a bitter illusion with its gray waves.
The north wind ripples the sea, and the sea lashes
the port wall.
The afternoon closes the horizon
cloudy Over the sea of ​​steel
There is a sky of lead.
The red brig is a ghost
bloody, on the sea, that the sea shakes…
Dismal the north wind hums and whistles sadly
in the bitter lyre of the strong rigging.
The red brig is a ghost
that the wind stirs and rocks the rippled sea,
the rough curly sea of ​​gray waves.

Antonio Machado, the youngest poet of the generation of ’98, shows us in this poem a melancholic, dark and gloomy seawhich contrasts with the usual representation of the sea as a symbol of adventure and freedom.

Over the Sea – John Keats

Their eternal murmurs do not cease
next to the desolate beaches, and the brio of its waves
ten thousand caverns filled twice,
until Hecate’s spell returns them to their silence.

But often has such sweet continent,
that just the smallest shell
moves from where it fell last time
that the heavenly winds stirred.

Those of you who have painful or tired eyes,
gift them with the breadth of the sea;
and those deafened by the noise,

or those of you who are tired of tiring melodies,
sit next to the grotto to meditate,
until you wake up with the singing of the nymphs.

John Keats, one of the main English poets of Romanticism, speaks in this poem of the power, mystery and energy of the sea. He presents it at once as an eternal and changing force, capable of overwhelming with its power, but also of offering peace.

Sea – Federico García Lorca

The sea is
the Lucifer of blue.
The fallen sky
for wanting to be the light.

Poor damned sea
to eternal movement,
having previously been
still in the firmament!

But of your bitterness
love redeemed you.
You paid pure Venus,
and your depth remained
virgin and painless.

Your sadnesses are beautiful,
sea ​​of ​​glorious spasms.
But today instead of stars
you have greenish octopuses.

Hold on to your suffering,
formidable Satan.
Christ walked for you,
but so did Pan.

The star Venus is
the harmony of the world.
Shut up Ecclesiastes!
Venus is the deep
of the soul…

…And the miserable man
He is a fallen angel.
The earth is the probable
Paradise Lost.

In this poem full of religious, mythological and existential references, Lorca presents the sea as a symbol of the fall (like Lucifer, the fallen angel), suffering and redemption, as a condemned but sublime entity, capable of generating beauty despite its punishment.

By the sea – Christina Rossetti

Why does the sea lament eternally?
Expelled from heaven, makes your cry
breaks against the edge of the coast;
Not all the rivers on earth can fill it;
The sea still drinks, insatiable.

Pure miracles of grace
They lie hidden in their bed never seen:
anemones, salt, dispassionate
flowered petals; alive enough
to blow and multiply and prosper.

Picturesque shells, curves, points or spirals,
with living inlays like the eyes of Argos,
all equally beautiful, but all unmatched,
They are born without anguish, they die without pain,
and so they pass.

The British poet Christina Rossetti reflects in this poem on the restless and insatiable nature of the sea that hides beneath its surface a quiet beauty. At the same time, it explores themes such as separation and the mysteries of life and death.

From the blue sea the transparent waves – Rosalía de Castro

Of the blue sea the transparent waves
while soft they murmur
on the sand, even my feet rolling,
Temptresses kiss me and look for me.

Restless they lick the edge of my plant,
gracefully throw me their snowy foam,
and I think that they call me, that they attract me
towards their humid rooms.

But when I anxiously want
follow them across the liquid plain,
my foot sinks into the transparent lymph
and they mock me.
And they run away, abandoning me on the beach
to the earth, endless fight,
as on the sad beaches of life
Fortune left me inconstant.

The Galician writer Rosalía de Castro uses the sea as a metaphor for illusion, desire and the transience of luck. The waves, which seem kind and loving, only seem to mock and abandon the poetess, in the same way that fate does in life.

To the sea – Francisco de Quevedo

You have the will of God for crickets,
And written in the sand, law humbles you;
And by kissing her you reach the shore,
Obedient sea, by dint of fluctuations.

In your own pride you stop,
How humble you are, enough to resist;
Your prison marvels at yourself,
Rich, for our evil, of our goods.

Who gave the pine and the beech daring
To occupy the fishes’ home,
And the Linen from blocking the way of the wind?

Without a doubt, seeing you imprisoned, imprisoned,
The greed of haggard gold,
God’s wrath directed at man.

The sea, which has traditionally been associated with freedom and adventure, is also somewhat submissive here. Among Quevedo’s poems we find this one in which he portrays it as a paradox: powerful but obedient; prisoner, but wonderful. It also criticizes human greed, arrogance and exploitation of nature.

By the seashore – Manuel Magallanes Moure

At sunset,
along the immense and lonely beach,
facing the sea wind
our horses gallop.

It is the golden horizon,
gold is the sea and gold they throw
horse hooves
when splashing in the waves.

In white groups contemplate
the sun goes down the seagulls;
but, as we approach, they fly
in tumultuous flocks.

Heavily they walk away
over the troubled waves
and descend into the distance
tracing an airy curve.

We will soon reach out to you
and they, again in defeat,
to fly, always ahead,
above the sound sea.

Through the wet and firm sand
our horses gallop.
To the strong sea wind
hair and souls float.

At sunset,
on the vast and lonely beach
your soul was given to my lama,
your mouth gave itself to my mouth.

Don’t know what to talk about
when the emotion is deep.
by the seashore
our horses gallop.

This poem by the Chilean modernist poet Manuel Magallanes Moure capture the beauty of a moment by the sea. It describes a dreamlike atmosphere, where galloping horses, the golden sea and the flight of seagulls accompany two lovers.

I hate the sea – José Martí

I hate the sea, only beautiful when it moans
Of the taming ship under the cleft
Keel, and like a fantastic demon,
With a colossal black cloak covered,
Bow to the winds of the night
Before the sublime victor who passes:—
And in the light of the stars, enclosed
In glass globes, on the bridge
An impassive man turns the page to a book.—

I hate the sea: vast and flat, equal and cold
Not like the leafy jungle throws out its branches
Like his arms, to squeeze the sad
How hurt comes from hard men
And distrust the good of life;
Not like an honest fighter, on the ground
Firm and secure chest, it awaits the man
But in treacherous and shifting sand,
What a deadly snake. —Also the seas,
The sun too, also Nature
To move man to the virtues,
She must be frank, and she must live honestly.
Without palm trees, without flowers, it seems to me
Always a dark desert soul.

That I am dead, it is clear: no one cares
And not even to me: but because she is beautiful,
Igneous, varied, immortal, I love life.

What hurts me is not living: it hurts me
Live without doing good. I love my sorrows,
My sorrows, my shields of nobility.
I will not make pro-life guilty
Of my own misfortune, nor that of others
I will poison enjoyment with my pains.
The earth is good, existence is holy.
And in the same pain, new reasons
They are found to live, and great enjoyment,
Clear as an aurora and penetrating.
Let the fools die once and for a while
That why the tears in his eyes arise
Bigger and more beautiful than the seas.

I hate the sea, huge dead, sad dead
Of clumsy and gluttonous creatures
Hateful inhabited: they look alike
In the eyes of the fish that expires too much
Those of the lover of love who trembles in his arms
Of the horrible libidinous woman:—
I saw it, and I said it: -some are cowards,
And what they see and what they feel remain silent:
Not me: if I find an infamous person in my path,
I tell him in clear language: here goes an infamous person,
And no, like the sea does, I hide my chest.
I don’t even keep my sacred verse insignificant
To weave rosaries for the ladies
And masks of honor to thieves:
I hate the sea, which endures without anger
On its complacent back, the ship
That between music and flower brings a tyrant.

The Cuban writer and politician José Martí confesses here his rejection by the seawhich he presents as a symbol of deception, passivity and death. Unlike many poets who romanticize the sea as a source of inspiration or mystery, Martí sees it as treacherous and sterile, unlike the land, which is fertile and welcoming.

What the sea will be like – Guillermo Prieto

Your name or sea! It resonates inside me;
awaken my tired fantasy:
moves, enlarges my soul,
It fills her with fervent enthusiasm.

Nothing limited compresses me,
when I imagine contemplating your breast;
I allude, melancholic and serene,
or august forehead; your sublime moan.

You will be oh sea! magnificent and grand
when you sleep smiling and peaceful;
when your still and dilated breast
caress the delicious atmosphere?

When proud, ardent, enraged
Moaning you rush up to the sky:
when I make the wide sky tremble
of your restless waters the roar?

Sweet will be the light of the clear day
if it reverberates in your diaphanous waves;
please the aura and the rock that haughty
your vehement impulses defy.

I think I see in your turbulent empire
the sublime eternity in his palace,
dominating the world and space,
measuring the extent of the firmament.

You are the idea of ​​divinity;
of the miserable world poetry
the sweet admiration of my soul;
with your sight the Eternal recreates himself.

The branch of the beach, how distant
In your restless extension you wander lost,
like the sad memory of life
in the mind of the dying man.

From the shining moon the pure light,
through the stormy cloud,
what memory of a loving mother
in the midst of bitter misfortune.

From a boat the miserable wreck
May it rotate through your calm bosom,
like an unfortunate premonition
that makes the navigator’s chest shake.

Everything, everything you will make interesting:
Shouldn’t I admire you? Will it be banned
to my ears your sacred roar
And I will always, always have you distant?

The hand of pain that compresses me,
He destines me to perish as a captive
between mean city walls
without venerating your sublime majesty?

Or will impious luck take me to you,
covered in pain, having no father;
without my sweet darling; without my mother,
thrown, oh sad, from my homeland?

Guillermo Prieto, a Mexican writer and politician, presents the sea as something divine and eternalalthough also as a reflection of uncertainty and human pain.

I have my loves in the sea – Carolina Coronado

Son of the sea, dear spirit!
high immortal wit of poetry,
listen to this moan from the sea
that my loving heart sends you:
I adore you in the sea, and I have come
to listen to your harmony in its depths
and in its breeze your breath to breathe,
because my loves are in the sea.

Many nights in the moonbeam
I have seen you in the middle of the ocean
cursing the rigor of your fortune
and my shadow calls to you in vain;
and the waves that go one by one
to crash into the Cádiz wall,
I tell them to take my song to you
when they turn with the dawn to the sea.

On that tower that in the dark night
shines like the light of your gaze,
many times I also go up agitated

to look at your vessel from above;
and if your…