Ax in 1903 he published his work "Soledades" and ended up expanding it in 1907 under the name "Solitudes, galleries and other poems", a work of a more intimate and sober nature in which excessively loud aspects are replaced by others that denote greater interiority and simplicity, the result of reflection and the passage of time between the release of "Soledades" and its expansion.
In this work are present as in all, the obsessions of a Machado that the passage of time brought him upside down, with the constant memory of lost youth and the constant and silent presence of death that lurks in every corner, reminding us of our transience and the fact that we will all end up dead one day , something that is repeated over and over in different ways in the verses of the Sevillian writer.
In addition to the questions thrown into the air by the poetic voice, we find in this exquisite work several Symbols that do not have a single meaning but different echoes, which makes them richer and more semi-precious. The afternoon would be one of them. This time of day is always sad and melancholic and refers to the inexorable decline that awaits all living beings in this life and that so obsessed Machado.
Water, however, is life, although when it sounds, it transports us to a monotonous and repetitive world in which boredom is almost confused with pain. The fountains are the memory of the lost childhood, a happy but painful time as long as it is irretrievable, just like the garden and the orchard. Finally the roads, its most famous symbol are paths that lead us to the end of life, but in whose path is what is truly important.
More information - The life of Antonio Machado
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Source - Oxford University Press