In 1882, he traveled through England, Switzerland and France, and in Paris met with other contemporary poets and artists, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Gustave Moreau.

However, with the death of his father and the mounting financial difficulties of his family, Asunción Silva found himself obligated to return to Colombia.

On the morning of 24 May 1896, a housemaid found Asunción Silva dead in his bed with a gun near his body; he had shot himself in the heart the night before.

There are many reasons for his suicide, including the death of his sister Elvira, the loss of almost all his work when his ship sank near a quay in the Caribbean Sea, and his debts.

In fact, Carranza praises Silva's influence on Modernist poetry stating that: "One of the remarkable contributions of Silva's poetry is the experimentation and rehabilitation of traditional meters, as he varied rhythms and accents, and played with stanzas and measures, with the aim of loosening up the rigidity of the verse, putting it at the service of the modulation, music, feelings and emotions he wanted to express.