“The dark swallows will return”: Gustavo Adolfo Becquer; poem and analysis

“The dark swallows will return”: Gustavo Adolfo Becquer; poem and analysis.

The dark swallows will return (The dark swallows will return) is a romantic poem by the Spanish writer Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870), composed in 1868 and published in the 1871 anthology: Rimas (Rhymes).

Much has been said about this classic love poem by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. In a way, its aesthetic represents the sum of the philosophy of romanticism.

The dark swallows will return It brings together with remarkable elegance all the characteristics of romanticism, but what is even more astonishing, it also masks them.

For many, The dark swallows will return It is a poem of love and hope, a consolation, perhaps, in the face of life’s disappointments. Personally, I think Gustavo Adolfo Becquer pursued exactly opposite objectives. Definitely, The dark swallows will return It is a song of desolation.

The protagonist of the poem, a man deeply in love, plunges into anguish when remembering his lost love. In a way, nothing in the universe is capable of expressing his sadness. Gustavo Adolfo Becquer He uses the contrast with nature, especially with the return of the swallows, to emphasize the feeling of desolation in the face of things that never return.

The dark swallows will return seems to postulate that everything can be reborn in nature except love. This places the human being in a privileged position in the face of fatality. Only he, among all the creatures in the universe, is capable of witnessing the renewing cycle of nature and warning that, despite this, love and illusion will never return.

Already at the end Gustavo Adolfo Becquer risks a dangerous move. In a framework where everything returns, except love, the protagonist of The dark swallows will return He finds unexpected comfort in the certainty that no one will ever love like him.

The dark swallows will return.
The dark swallows will return, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870)

The dark swallows will return
on your balcony their nests to hang,
and again with the wing to its crystals
playing they will call.

But those that the flight restrained
your beauty and my joy to contemplate,
those who learned our names….
those… they won’t come back!

The bushy honeysuckle will return
of your garden the walls to climb,
and again in the afternoon even more beautiful
its flowers will open.

But those dew curds
whose drops we watched tremble
and fall like tears of the day….
those… they won’t come back!

They will return from love in your ears
the burning words to sound,
your heart from its deep sleep
maybe he will wake up.

But mute and absorbed and on my knees
how God is worshiped before his altar,
as I have loved you…, disabuse yourself,
like this… they won’t love you!

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870)

More gothic poems. I Poems by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer.

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