Ruben Dario

As we were reading some of the peoms by Ruben Dario, I was very intrigued by the difference in tone and message in the poems "Springtime" and "Fatality". If Mr. Cummings had not told us that these two poems came from the same poet, I would not have believed it. One of the things I love, is how different the first stanza in each poem contrasts to the first stanza in the other poem. In the poem "Springtime", the reader can observe that the poem is very musical, flowery, optimistic, and shows the beauty of nature. Dario begins this poem with the line "month of roses". This immedialty sets a positive mood for the rest of the poem; due in part beacuse one associates "roses" with beauty, and positiveness. However, when one reads that there is "no burden heavier than that of conscious life"(Fatality), it can be conlcuded that the mood from the poem "Springtime" to the poem "Fatality" has changed drmatically. Not only is the cntent of these two poems different, but the titles of them both contradict each other tremendously. It is beacuse of this reason that I was having a hard time trying to understand how these two poems were written by the same poet. You would think that a poet would go throough life with an opinion/idea and then just express it on paper. However, it seems that Ruben Dario wants to express contradicting emotions in these two poems.