"Wake Up" by Pedro Salinas y Serrano

Wake up. Day calls you 
to your life: your duty. 
And to live, nothing more. 
Root it out of the glum 
night and the darkness 
that covered your body 
for which light waited 
on tiptoe in the dawn. 
Stand up, affirm the straight 
simple will to be 
a pure slender virgin. 
Test your bodys metal. 
cold, heat? Your blood 
will tell against the snow, 
or behind the window. 
The colour 
in your cheeks will tell. 
And look at people. Rest 
doing no more than adding 
your perfection to another 
day. Your task 
is to carry your life high, 
and play with it, hurl it 
like a voice to the clouds 
so it may retrieve the light 
already gone from us. 
That is your fate: to live 
Do nothing. 
Your work is you, nothing more.