Pablo Neruda -Diablitos-

Diablitos

He visto cómo preparaba
su condición el oportuno,
su coartada el arribista,
sus redes la rica barata,
sus inclusiones el poeta.
Yo jugué con el papél limpio
frente a la luz todos los días.

Yo soy obrero pescador
de versos vivos y mojados
que siguen saltando en mis venas.
Nunca supe urdir los menesteres
del intrínseco jactancioso
o del perverso intrigador,
y no es propaganda del bien
lo que estoy diciendo en mi canto:
sino que no lo supe hacer,
y le pide excusas a todos:
déjenmen solo con el mar:
yo nací para pocos peces.


Little devils

I have seen how prepared
the opportunist his lifestyle,
the upstart his alibi,
the rich miser his nets,
the poet his boundaries.
I played with clean paper
in full light every day.

I am a worker-fisherman
of living wet verses
that keep leaping in my veins.
I never knew how to do anything else
never knew how to contrive the tools
of the intrinsic braggart
or the perverse schemer,
and what I say in my song
is not benign propaganda:
it just that I didn't know how,
forgive me:
leave me alone with the sea:
I was born for a handful of fishes.

Translation by Diana Guillermo