rtant
language; William Cullen Bryant did it in English; but in spite of its
wide popularity, it is, perhaps, outside of Cuba the least understood of
all Placido's poems. It is curious to note how Bryant's translation
totally misses the intimate sense of the delicate subtility of the poem.
The American poet makes it a tender and loving farewell of a son who is
about to die to a heart-broken mother; but that is not the kind of a
farewell that Placido intended to write or did write.

The key to the poem is in the first word, and the first word is the
Spanish conjunction _Si_ (if). The central idea, then, of the sonnet
is, "If the sad fate which now overwhelms me should bring a pang to your
heart, do not weep, for I die a glorious death and sound the last note of
my lyre to you." Bryant either failed to understand or ignored the opening
word, "If," because he was not familiar with the poet's history.

While Placido's father was a Negro, his mother was a Spanish white woman,
a dancer in one of the Habana theatres. At his birth she abandoned him to
a foundling asylum, and perhaps never saw him again, although it is known
that she outlived her son. When the poet came down to his last hours he
remembered that somewhere there lived a woman who was his mother; that
although she had heartlessly abandoned him; that although he owed her no
filial duty, still she might, perhaps, on hearing of his sad end feel some
pang of grief or sadness; so he tells her in his last words that he dies
happy and bids her not to weep. This he does with nobility and dignity,
but absolutely without affection. Taking into account these facts, and
especially their humiliating and embittering effect upon a soul so
sensitive as Placido's, this sonnet, in spite of the obvious weakness of
the sestet as compared with the octave, is a remarkable piece of work.[1]

[Footnote 1: Placido's sonnet and two English versions will be found in
the Appendix.]

In considering the Aframerican poets of the Latin languages I am impelled
to think that, as up to this time the colored poets of greater
universality have come out of the Latin-American countries rather than out
of the United States, they will continue to do so for a good many years.
The reason for this I hinted at in the first part of this preface. The
colored poet in the United States labors within limitations which he
cannot easily pass over. He is always on the defensive or the offensive.
The pressure upon