[1] His maternal relatives came from an Extremaduran village called Alburquerque, but during his early years the family moved successively to Badajoz, Vigo, Port Bou, Valencia, and Barcelona; in this last city his parents died in a short period of time.

He sympathised with Krauseanism and was a denizen of the Ateneo, where he organized a number of acts (homages to Rubén Darío, Benito Pérez Galdós and Mariano de Cavia; and presentations like the one with José María Gabriel y Galán).

He frequented the gathering of the Café Regina, where he became friend of Manuel Azaña, and started his poetic path publishing his first poems in Versos de las horas, 1906.

He translated authors like Paul Verlaine, Francis Jammes, Michel de Montaigne, John Webster, H. G. Wells, Heinrich Heine, Eugenio d'Ors and Walt Whitman.

Already in the middle of the Civil War, he collaborated with Hora de España' and participated in the Second International Writers in Defense of the Culture Congress; he directed the Madrid magazine as well.