The Hogarth Press

Sometime last year I came across this excellent translation of García Lorca's poems:

Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca, translated by Stephen Spender and J.L. Gili (London: The Hogarth Press, 1943).

Spender and Gili's versions, for the most part, hold up quite well. The edition itself is exquisite, with a plain brown dust jacket imprinted with red letters. The catalog on the sleeve lists ten previous books as part of "The New Hogarth Library." I hope to come across #9 in the collection one day: Forty Poems by John Lehmann.

Spender and Gili conclude this brief collection with the following translation:


"The Lament

I have shut my balcony
because I do not want to hear the weeping,
but from behind the grey walls
nothing else is heard but the weeping.

There are very few angels that sing,
there are very few dogs that bark,
a thousand violins fit into the palm of the hand;
but the weeping is an immense angel,
the weeping is an immense violin,
the tears muzzle the wind,
nothing else is heard but the weeping."