My homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air;
no bird here can sing as well
as the birds sing over there.
We have fields more full of flowers
and a starrier sky above,
we have woods more full of life
and a life more full of love.
Lonely night-time meditations
please me more when I am there;
my homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air.
Such delights as my land offers
Are not found here nor elsewhere;
lonely night-time meditations
please me more when I am there;
My homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air.
Don't allow me, God, to die
without getting back to where
I belong, without enjoying
the delights found only there,
without seeing all those palm-trees,
hearing thrush-songs fill the air.
Notes
To read the original in Portuguese, click here
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/25229-Antonio-Goncalves-Dias-Can--o-do-ex-lio
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Comments
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From guest Lucy Brond (contact)
I have lived in another country and I can say that I had this poem in my mind. I had learned it at high school and had never imagine one day I would understand this poem so well. No matter the problems we have, our homeland will always be in our hearts. -
I see the elements of the saudade that peculiar emotion known to Portuguese speaking people. Besides that mixture of sadness, longing and wistful memories, there seems to be an elevated, extreme here, and I suppose that is what distance does, it creates a false image...the grass becomes greener, the women more beautiful, the air clearer.
The last lines are painful, and anyone who has been displaced from their homeland know that feeling I'm sure. -
The idea of missing something, a deep sense of emotional separation made in brilliant imagery by the physical ideas but always ...it is the meaning of things that matters so much...excellent, the translation brings the rhythm of the original very skillful use of rhyme...excellent work...PK
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