Good-bye rivers, good-bye fountains;
Good-bye, little rills;
Good-bye, sight of my eyes:
Don't know when we'll see each other again.
...
When I think that you have parted,
Black shadow that overshades me,
At the foot of my head pillows
You return making fun of me.
...
From the cadenced roar of the waves
and the wail of the wind,
from the shimmering light
flecked over woodland and cloud,
...
They say that the plants do not speak, not the brooks, nor the birds,
Nor the waves with their roar, not with their brilliance the stars,
So they say: but one cannot be sure, for always when I go by,
They whisper about me and say
...
I know not what I seek eternally
on earth, in air, and sky;
I know not what I seek; but it is something
that I have lost, I know not when,
...
between the earth and sky that keep
eternal watch,
like a rushing headlong torrent
life passes on.
...
Feeling her end would come with summer's end,
the incurable invalid
thought with mingled joy and sadness:
"I shall die in the autumn,
...
He who weeps goes not alone,
Keep flowing, I beg of you, my tears!
A single burden suffices the soul;
One joy is never, never enough.
...
The spring does not flow now, the stream is quite dry,
No traveller goes to quench his thirst there.
The grass does not grow now, no daffodil blooms,
No fragrance of lilies floats on the air.
...
I in my bed of thistles,
You in your bed of roses and feathers,
He spoke the truth who spoke of an abyss
between your good fortune and my wretchedness.
...
Now that the sunset of hope for my life
has sand and colourless come,
toward my dim dwelling, dismantled and chill,
let us turn step by step:
...
The atmosphere is incandescent;
The fox explores an empty road;
Sick grow the waters
That sparkled in the clear arroyo,
...
Cold months of winter
That I love with all my love;
Months of rivers that run full
And the sweet love of home.
...
María Rosalía Rita de Castro, better known as Rosalía de Castro (24 February 1837 – 15 July 1885), was a Galician romanticist writer and poet. Writing in the Galician language, after the Séculos Escuros (lit. Dark Centuries), she became an important figure of the Galician romantic movement, known today as the Rexurdimento ("renaissance"), along with Manuel Curros Enríquez and Eduardo Pondal. Her poetry is marked by 'saudade', an almost ineffable combination of nostalgia, longing and melancholy. She married Manuel Murguía, member of the Galician Academy, historian, journalist and editor of Rosalía's books. (Her married name was Rosalía Castro de Murguía.) The couple had seven children: Alexandra (1859-1937), Aura (1868-1942), twins Gala (1871-1964) and Ovidio (1871-1900), Amara (1873-1921), Adriano (1875-1876) and Valentina (stillborn, 1877). The only two that married were Aura in 1897 and Gala in 1922; neither they nor their siblings left any children, and thus there are no living descendants of Rosalía de Castro and her husband. Their son Ovidio was a good painter, but his early death cut his career short. The date she published her first collection of poetry in Galician, Cantares gallegos ("Galician Songs"), May 17, 1863, is commemorated every year as the Día das Letras Galegas ("Galician Literature Day"), an official holiday of the Autonomous Community of Galicia, and has been dedicated to an important writer in the Galician language since 1963. Relative poverty and sadness marked her life, although she had a strong sense of commitment to the poor and to the defenseless. She was a strong opponent of abuse of authority and defender of women's rights. She suffered from cancer of the womb and died of this illness. Her image appeared on the 500 peseta Spanish banknote.)
Margarita
1
¡Silencio, los lebreles
de la jauría maldita!
No despertéis a la implacable fiera
que duerme silenciosa en su guarida.
¿No veis que de sus garras
penden gloria y honor, reposo y dicha?
Prosiguieron aullando los lebreles…
-Los malos pensamientos homicidas!-
y despertaron la temible fiera…
-¡la pasión que en el alma se adormía!-
Y ¡adiós! en un momento,
¡adiós gloria y honor, reposo y dicha!
2
Duerme el anciano padre, mientras ella
a la luz de la lámpara nocturna
contempla el noble y varonil semblante
que un pesado sueño abruma.
Bajo aquella triste frente
que los pesares anublan,
deben ir y venir torvas visiones,
negras hijas de la duda.
Ella tiembla…, vacila y se estremece…
¿De miedo acaso, o de dolor y angustia?
Con expresión de lastima infinita,
no sé qué rezos murmura.
Plegaria acaso santa, acaso impía,
trémulo el labio a su pesar pronuncia,
mientras dentro del alma la conciencia
contra las pasiones lucha.
¡Batalla ruda y terrible
librada ante la víctima, que muda
duerme el sueño intranquilo de los tristes
a quien ha vuelto el rostro la fortuna!
Y él sigue en reposo, y ella,
que abandona la estancia, entre las brumas
de la noche se pierde, y torna al alba,
ajado el velo…, en su mirar la angustia.
Carne, tentación, demonio,
¡oh!, ¿de cuál de vosotros es la culpa?
¡Silencio…! El día soñoliento asoma
por las lejanas alturas,
y el anciano despierto, ella risueña,
ambos su pena ocultan,
y fingen entregarse indiferentes
a las faenas de su vida oscura.
3
La culpada calló, mas habló el crimen…
Murió el anciano, y ella, la insensata,
siguió quemando incienso en su locura,
de la torpeza ante las negras aras,
hasta rodar en el profundo abismo,
fiel a su mal, de su dolor esclava.
¡Ah! Cuando amaba el bien, ¿cómo así pudo
hacer traición a su virtud sin mancha,
malgastar las riquezas de su espíritu,
vender su cuerpo, condenar su alma?
Es que en medio del vaso corrompido
donde su sed ardiente se apagaba,
de un amor inmortal los leves átomos,
sin mancharse, en la atmósfera flotaban.
Sedientas las arenas, en la playa
sienten del sol los besos abrasados,
y no lejos, las ondas, siempre frescas,
ruedan pausadamente murmurando.
Pobres arenas, de mi suerte imagen:
no sé lo que me pasa al contemplaros,
pues como yo sufrís, secas y mudas,
el suplicio sin término de Tántalo.
Pero ¿quién sabe…? Acaso luzca un día
en que, salvando misteriosos límites,
avance el mar y hasta vosotras llegue
a apagar vuestra sed inextinguible.
¡Y quién sabe también si tras de tantos
siglos de ansias y anhelos imposibles,
saciará al fin su sed el alma ardiente
donde beben su amor los serafines!
Why is Rosalia de Castro's As I composed this little book not included?