Take This Waltz (After Lorca) by, Leonard Cohen

In another English class that I'm taking this year we studied a poem by Leonard Cohen called Take This Waltz (After Lorca). Apparently it has been translated from Spanish and according to my professor it has lost a lot of meaning through translation. I have posted this poem because I felt it to be beautiful and symbolic( also it is one of the few poems other than Shakespeare's that I find appealing)

(After Lorca)
Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost--
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand--
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.

There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.

there's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
on a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow--
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
with it's "I'll never forget you, you know!"

And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrap book,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist--
O my love, o my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now. It's all there is.


It may have been apparent to you that it was made into a song due to the fact that there is a refrain between stanzas. The line that says "my mouth in the dew of your thighs", was one of the parts that was altered in translation. When translated into English it sounds like the poet is talking about a female because we often associate wetness of thighs to the woman's sexuality, but infect when this poem was first written it was written by a homosexual and therefore that line was translated incorrectly, I do not know what the proper translation would have been. Also the part where he says " I want you...", was actually supposed to say I love you.

I also appreciate some of the gothic imagery eg:
" on a chair with a dead magazine"
" Take its broken waist in your hand" etc.

It is a beautiful poem with a lot of imagery and metaphors. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do
and if you have any feed back please comment.