Academy of American Poets
View Cart | Log In 
Subscribe | More Info 
Find a Poet or Poem
Advanced Search >
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Born on November 12, 1651, Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez would eventually become a nun and a poet known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz...
More >
Want more poems?
Subscribe to our
Poem-A-Day emails.
FURTHER READING
Related Poems
Bows From The Last Dance
by Ish Klein
Wild Swans
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sponsor a Poet Page | Add to Notebook | E-mail to Friend | Print

Suspend, Singer Swan

 
by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
translated by Michael Smith

Suspend, singer swan, the sweet strain:
see how the lord that Delphi sees
exchanges for you the gentle lyre for pipe
and to Admetus makes a pastoral sound.

As gentle song, though strong, moved
stones and tamed the wrath of hell,
so it retreats, abashed, when you are heard:
your instrument blames the church itself.

For though the works of ancient builders
cannot match its columns, 
nothing's greater than your song 

when your clear voice strikes its stones,
and your sweet tones surpass it,
dwarf it, while making it grow the more.






Copyright © 2004 by Michael Smith. Reprinted by permission of the translator and Shearsman Books Ltd.
Larger TypeLarger Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright © 1997 - 2013 by Academy of American Poets.