In _El Modernismo, Poetas Modernistas_, R. Blanco-Fombona has written an interesting, comprehensive, and necessary book about South American poets, and poets of old Spain. He has related some facts which explain the discussed mystery of the meaning of the _Great Nocturn_ of Silvá. He says that where the poet speaks of their shadows (Silvá and his sister, Elvira) meeting, he is relating, in his grief, a memory of their childhood. Once they went, in summer, to a dwelling, high in the Andes, for cooler air. At night upon a balcony, with the house lights behind them, Silvá and Elvira were standing, while the flickering lamp’s flame painted their gigantic, grotesque shadows across the night-black mountains. My translation was made long ago, the first translation of Silvá into any language. NOCTURN OF SILVA It was night time, Night time lonely, It was night time filled with murmurings of sweetness, With faint perfumes, and the music dim of birds’ wings, It was night time, It was night time, and the darkness hymeneal, deep and dewy, Shone fantastical with fire-flies. By my side then, slowly, slowly, by my side then silent, pallid, As if to you there came knowledge of a future dark and bitter, Troubling hidden, secret, soul-depths and the fibers of your being, By my side along the pathway of the flowers across the pale plain, You were walking, And the full moon Then up-swinging through the sweet sky’s serene azure shed upon us its white light; And your shadow, Graceful, languid, And my shadow From the moon’s pale light out-floating, On the sand-plain sad and lonely Where the path wound, were united And made one there, Were united in one lone and somber shadow, Were united in one lone and somber shadow, Were united in one lone and somber shadow. It was night time, Night time lonely, And my heart held naught save memory of your death and agony; Separated now forever, separated by time from you, by space, by the tomb forever, And by shadows black and blacker, Where my voice can never reach you, Silent, dumb, sad and alone By the pathway I was walking.... At the lone moon dogs were baying, At the moon so sad and lone; I heard harsh and ghostly croaking Of the frogs beneath the moon.... I felt chilly, and the chill was that which held you in your chamber, Held in your white, ghostly chamber, hands and breasts and cheeks I loved. Held between the snowy marble Of the pale, dim plain of death.