Dario Demetrio Ruiz C. (1897–1980) was an Ecuadorian journalist, poet, and customs manager. In the 1930s, he founded two newspapers in Guayaquil: El Derecho and El Espectador. He also worked as a writer for other prominent newspapers, including El Universo and El Telégrafo. Ruiz Cárdenas published several of his poems in various publications throughout his life, but a collection of his works has never been compiled into a book.
Background
Dario Demetrio Rafael Ruiz Cárdenas was born on October 24, 1897, in Ecuador. He was the son of José Darío Ruiz Chiriboga and Luz Mercedes Cárdenas. He married Julia María Magdalena Castro Ramos, with whom he had at least four children—two sons and two daughters. The Ruiz family was known to have ties to Cotacachi, Ecuador, reflecting their familial roots in the region. He passed away in 1980 at the age of 83.
Poems
English translation by Richard Gabela completed on November 22, 2024
MEMORIES
My love is now a lost illusion,
"among the shadows of eternal forgetting."
Oh! My passion and life's tender embrace
have already perished, severed by the blade
of one final, sorrowful farewell.
Like some Oriental fable,
I will recall the idyll of that love,
when my lips, brimming with candor,
pressed against her coral lips,
accompanied by triumphant ecstasy.
These memories stir within my mind,
memories that nourish the hope
of a future that approaches, smiling—
a future I glimpse on distant horizons,
fading... far away, in the East.
You, my life, my being, my thought,
would press my face against your breast,
so I might hear the sweet tones
of your song, melodious and tender,
lulling me into a dreamy, childlike sleep.
But misfortune stole your life,
while you were still in your youthful bloom.
Let my soul go forth united with yours;
let it rest in the mysterious calm,
forever mingled, confusedly, with yours.
Darío Demetrio Ruiz
Quito, April of 1917
Recuerdos
Es ya mi amor una ilusión perdida
«entre las sombras del eterno olvido».
¡Oh! mi pasión y halago por la vida
han muerto ya, segados por el filo,
de una postrera y triste despedida.
Como si fuese fábula oriental
recordaré el idilio de ese amor,
cuando imprimía en los suyos de coral
mis labios rebosantes de candor,
acompañados de éxtasis triunfal.
Bullan esos recuerdos en mi mente,
recuerdos que alimentan la esperanza
de un futuro que viene sonriente,
que diviso en remota lontananza
que se pierde… allá lejos, en oriente.
Tú, mi vida, mi ser, mi pensamiento
ocultabas mi rostro entre tu seno,
para que así escuchara el dulce acento
de tu cantar, que melodioso y tierno
convertíame en niño soñoliento.
Mas la desgracia arrebató tu vida,
cuando aun estabas en edad lozana.
¡Vaya mi alma con la tuya unida;
vaya a dormir la misteriosa calma
a estar junto con la tuya confundida!
Darío Demetrio Ruiz
Quito, Abril de 1917
Published in: LA IDEA, Órgano de la Sociedad Literaria “César Borja”, Issue 1, 1917.
ELENA
(For M.E.S.)
The fire of love is a fire that burns
with a blazing flame in the loving heart;
this is the fire, my adored Elena,
that I implore you to soothe for an instant.
For it is your lover who implores you now
to generously grant him a single kiss;
for it is your lover who lies dying,
oh! grant it, radiant with rapture.
Come, my joy, my heaven, my very soul,
and rest your fair brow upon my chest;
so I may tell you, brimming with delight,
how deeply my devoted soul has loved you!
Come, tell me that your love is mine,
offered with sacred fervor;
come and say to your adoring master:
"I forgive you in your wild delirium!"
Quito—1917.
Darío Demetrio Ruiz
Elena
(Para M. E. S.)
Es el fuego de amor fuego que quema
con ígnea llama al corazón amante;
ese es el fuego, mi adorada Elena,
que imploro lo mitigues un instante.
Por ser tu amante quien te está diciendo
que le brindes, generosa, un beso,
por ser tu amante quien se está muriendo,
¡oh! dáselo radiante de embeleso.
¡Ven, mi dicha, mi cielo, el alma mía,
y reclina en mi pecho tu alba frente;
para decirte, henchido de alegría,
cuánto te ha amado mi alma providente!
¡Ven a decirme que tu amor es mío;
que me lo brindas con fervor sagrado;
ven y dile a tu dueño idolatrado:
«te perdono en tu loco desvarío!»
Quito—1917.
Darío Demetrio Ruiz
WITHOUT HOPE
Hope has fled from my breast,
leaving my heart in agony;
and departed, like some exotic fragrance,
to lose itself in distant horizons…
When on nights of tranquility and calm,
I call insistently to my lost hope,
its slow echoes reverberate in my mind—
the grieving sobs of my soul.
But that echo of profound sorrow
is carried off by the wind in its swift flight,
to a place where my thoughts cannot reach,
to contemplate fleeting happiness.
Darío Demetrio Ruiz C.
Quito, June 1917.
Sin esperanza
Se fue ya de mi pecho la esperanza,
dejando al corazón en agonía;
y se fue, cual exótica fragancia,
a perderse en remota lejanía……
Cuando en las noches de sosiego y
(calma
llamo insistente a la esperanza mía,
repercuten despacio en el cerebro
los sollozos dolientes de mi alma.
Pero aquel eco de dolor profundo
lo lleva el euro en su veloz carrera
a do no alcanza el pensamiento mío
a contemplar la dicha lisonjera.
Darío Demetrio Ruiz C.
Quito.—Junio.—1917.
TWILIGHT SOLITUDE
(Affectionately dedicated to my distinguished friend, Jorge Servio Moreno)
The sun at dusk is already sinking away,
leaving behind a luminous trail
along the ocean's shore;
and from sunset to sunset, it moves on
to where eternal solitude reigns.
In the seas of azure distances,
its light sinks into the deep abysses,
just as my hope lulls itself to sleep
to the rhythm of mournful rhymes
whispered by the estuary's waves.
Beyond the horizon, in the unseen,
mysterious, far-off immensity,
the golden host of the sun vanishes,
and slowly, the moon begins to rise
behind the peaks of towering mountains.
Oh, solitude, witness to my sorrows,
ah, only you understand my pain;
I ask you for an answer, and you reply
with silence—withered and lethal.
I hear only the echo of my voice,
which, in the distance, slowly dies away,
like the gentle murmur of waves
from a distant, whispering spring.
Oh, majestic solitude of twilight!
You crown the Andes in silence,
lulling your golden radiance to rest;
and, mute, you proclaim sublimity.
Something unknown, indefinable, and sad—
I think is always the solitude of the soul;
solitude is the cloak that wraps itself
around the expansive kingdom of calm.
Guayaquil, January 18, 1918.
Darío Demetrio Ruiz G.
Soledad Crepuscular
Afectuosamente, a mi distinguido amigo Jorge Servio Moreno.
El sol en el ocaso ya se pierde,
y estela luminosa va dejando
del mar en la ribera;
y de ocaso en ocaso va pasando
a do la eterna soledad impera.
Y en los mares de azules lejanías
su luz se aduna en las profundas simas,
como se arrulla la esperanza mía
al compás de las dolientes rimas
que susurran las ondas de la ría.
Y tras el horizonte, en la invisible
y misteriosa inmensidad lejana,
la hostia de oro del sol se va perdiendo,
y lentamente, la luna, apareciendo
tras las cumbres de altísima montaña.
¡Oh! soledad, testigo de mis penas,
¡ay! sólo tú comprendes mi dolor;
te pido una respuesta, y me contestas
con el silencio mustio y matador.
Tan sólo el eco de mi voz escucho,
que, a lo lejos, se extingue lentamente,
como suave murmullo de las olas
de una distante, rumorosa fuente.
¡Soledad majestuosa de la tarde!
Tú, en silencio, a los Andes los coronas;
y adormeces tus áureos resplandores;
y, muda así, sublimidad pregonas.
Algo de ignoto, indefinible y triste
pienso que es siempre soledad del alma;
soledad es el manto en que se envuelve
el dilatado reino de la calma.
Guayaquil, Enero 18 de 1918.
Darío Demetrio Ruiz G.