VIEJO CIEGO.

With a guide you arrive at night, bringing the complaints of your old violin, and amid the smoke your strange silhouette looks like a puppet, a scrawny old nag. Punctual regular, so old and so blind, as you unravel your endless song, you set in our souls memories from long ago and mix a little sorrow with the drink.

The day your plaintive tangos fall silent, the alley's light will wear mourning veils of smoke, and a mysterious mark will stain the dirty cards, and simple souls will feel a little emotion.

The day your instrument's voice is no longer heard, when you lay down your bones beneath a doorway, the retired bards, without false sentiment, will hold your funeral with a little Italian song.

You seem a verse by mad Carriego; you seem the soul of the violin itself. Punctual regular, so old and so blind, so full of sorrow, so full of spleen.

When I hear your notes, the memory returns to me of that young woman from years gone by.

Come, old blind man, play a slow tango, very slow and very sad: I want to cry.