Ruben Dario changed the whole course of Spanish poetry, by converting it to modernism and by halting what he called the mummification of Spanish rhythms. Exotic, erratic, revolutionary, he was a major poet by any standards. This translation, by a man who is himself a poet, brings to English readers the whole range of Dario's verse-from the stinging little poems of Thistles to the dark, tired lines written at the end of his life.