En tierra, en humo, en polvo, en sombra, en nada

Full text of sonnet clxvi (1582) by Luis de Gongora y Aragote. Translation:

While burnished gold gleams in vain in the sun to compete with your hair;/ while in the middle of the plain your white brow gazes on the fair lily with disdain;/ while more eyes follow each lip to kiss them [each lip] than [follow] the early carnation;/ and while your slender neck triumphs over gleaming crystal with self-assured scorn: enjoy your neck, hair, lips and brow, before what was in your golden youth, gold, lily, carnation, gleaming crystal not only turns to silver or to drooping violet but you and all of it together [turn] into earth, smoke, dust, shadow, nothing.

Excerpt from El Aguilucho (1990-something), by Luis Garcia Montero:

Cruces, Stop, portales, en cornisas
letreros luminosos, calles, rojos
semáforos que quedan de pasada.

Y la velocidad del parabrisas
que la ciudad convierte ante sus ojos
en tierra, en polvo, en humo, en sombra, en nada.

Intersections, Stop signs, gates, 
bright signs on building tops, streets, red
lights behind.


And the speed of the windshield
that converts the city before his eyes
into earth, smoke, dust, shadow, nothing.