Back to the country

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Juan Antonio Pérez Bonalde

 To my sister Elodia

 

Ey Land!, screams the navigator from the bow

and confused and distant so

a very indecisive line

between the mists and the waves is spied;

Little by Little the breast

all over the horizon is standing,

above the quiet ether,

blue summit of a mountain;

and just as our ship is getting closer;

the hills for me streches

and some different shapes takes a new order;

ways that I have seen just when

I dreamed in exile about hapiness.

The eye discern a distance

just in the riverside drawn by palm trees

and the awesome breeze flooded with the escence

of wild violets and orange blossoms seen,

in my memory enlighten

the joyful memory of my inocence,

when poor of years and sorrows,

and rich of greace and joy

under all the palms aroused I used to enjoy

listening the doves’ lull I always asume

that drinking all the light are breathing perfumes.

 

There is this something in those glitters sun rays

that are like playing for the blue atmosphere,

that talks about tenderness and love stays

about a past joy sincere,

and all of the wind whisper between the strings,

seams that tells me: « ¿Don’t you remember the things?».

That dreamy sky, those coconut trees, the sea,

that gilds those glorious montain

the sun of those tropical regions I see…

light! light at the end! I notice the lighting:

are all of them the same of my infancy,

and the midday sun beaches show aboveness

shining in the distancy

oh! inefable happyness,

this country is the riverside of my fullness!

 

The boiling sea already bites the bottom

 iron theet, anchor’s cottom;

the boats are approaching unfolding for us

a pure air and soft amass

the tricolour shows me my very own town.

 Oh land, oh land, this excitement is drowing me,

 

or is it taking the rave on my soul now!

carried on wings of my burning longing

I fling myself to the boat when comming

to the riversides of a home invites me.

Every sence is great harmony, the sights

from the sapphire sling that the oar stirs to be

of the glamorous seabirds

the twists that capricious flight;

and all the notes that curves,

flattering bell of minor,

and the magic no anguished

even in the lips of any crude sailor

is the sweetest sound of my native language.

In my head said: Fly, fly, fast,

birds, waves and voices at last!

 

Go straight to the land in which belongs my soul,

don’t tell them to come, I go!

To get some rest, tired walker,

One blow from the home to the shadow locker.

Say that in my longing in my delirium,   

To reach the shores, the chest feels

The sweetest martyrdom;

Say the land, that in the time I was absent,

 

 

not a day, not an instant, I’ve forgotten

and carry on this Kiss that I entrust to you

as my tribute not spoken

that from the bottom of my been I send you

¡Vogue, vogue, look orasman, that is how we got there!

¡Oh, this view, the excitement not felt until now!

¡Was stepped on the holy ground in which we care

 and tasted the first syrup in life of how!

Just right behind that blue mount whose high summit

 

throw me the challenge of pride

to the sapphire of the skies,

there’s the gentile village where, to the lullaby

that came of maternal love, it ripped the veils,

those that had juswt hidden the first light for me

¡On going, on going, postilion, please, agitates

the merciless whip in hand!

and so far going, the dilligent car gate

that spread by the whole sea precipitates.

 

There’s no rock or cove that in my mindly faith

do not come to awaken a memory

nor is there a wave that in the moistand sand

with my written with foam, some story

 of the pleasant moments of my life stand.

Everything speaks to me of dreams and songs,

of peace, of care, and the calm of well-being love

and the fugitive aura of the ocean

to caress my temple, restful, that comes and go

comes to whisper in my ear

with mysterious “welcome” accent dissapear.

And then come and go the humble fishermen

they have come to lay down the nets on the sand;

blessed. who do not feel the pain, the fishermen

nor the stabbing suffering

of all those people who cry far away from the home;

wretches people who ignore

unfathomable hapyness

of the citizens that their house sadly left

and then all anxious to their home returned yet .

 

They are the same that one day,

when I was a child, I admired on the beach,

thinking, in my inocence,

what was the human science,

using the cast net, the science of fishing each.

I remember you well, humbel fishermen,

although you do not remember, in absence

 

the years have changed me, as well the pains obtained.

already hidinhg itself behind a bend   

that makes the road, the sea, until I spend

 and everything desapears. 

There are no more than montains and horizons,

and the chest awesomely shakes

in every breathing, loaded with memories,

the pure air of the patriotic montains born.

 

Not only seeing the fresh and clean torrents. 

From there the gentle murmur

of magnificent tropical birds, I felt 

the melodious trill, the clear expectation

slipping through the waves of the invisible ether

the perfumed breaths exhaled by sensation

the golden and white chalice

of the humble flowers of ours ravines;

everything to dream invites,

and with such gentle effort,

the soul, full of tenderness, powerizes

the unknown vagueness of a dream has no record.

 

And the car dances with movements and the hours

With it the wheels slip lightly

And forever I, who do not feel more than thoughts

travel for the country of the chimeras

and it only find my eyes, but I’m not looking

I only see the colorless breasts of the void…

 

Suddenly,I’m descending from a hollow,

 «Caracas, there you are!», says the charioteer,

and sudden the spirit like never wakes up

full of happiness like cub

to see the land, my friend.

Caracas, there you are! with your red ceilings,

Your unique white tower, your always blue knoll

and the image of the bands of shy pigeons

make my eyes be blind with tears, like leaves in fall

Caracas, there you are! look at her lying

To the foothills of the Avila just steep,

surrendered odalisque

of the sultan in love, lying at the feet

There is an overjoy in the space clambing

a party of piece and loves:

there is a cares in the winds of the montain;

from the forest the pulls minstrels that we love

with its sweet glorious singing

let us listen in the forest grove to me;

in the small insects that are in the flowers

in the golden pistil hugging each other;

kiss  the loving aura the gentle Guaire;

 

and with the rays of light are just together

the impalpable atoms spread in the air.

Hurry, hurry, the postilion agitates

The inclement whipping seen!

Go home, go home, and that already beats

for that home my heart , No more, stop and been

Oh never ending sorrow, oh unfortunate

myself, that in my dream I have already leit

the feeling I have no home… Stop, dear cabby;

we have to follow our own destiny,

you, to the place so friendly

 

where your mother is waiting, what a that beauty

that becomes from nowhere to the middle of joy

and I… go to the cemetery

whereis my mother buried.

Oh unsolvable mystery

That stops the happines, turning in burnng tears!

Where is that lady, my lord, that is your saint

the infinite goodness, that you full of grace  

uniting all the joy with so much sadness?

There is no more party in the air, nothing’s happy

not even the golden light;

only the light turned black

and the cruelest pain that turns my chest in fire… 

Be strong, be settled, heart of mine, do not outbreak

all your tears turned into crying, do not drain,

that a lot of suffering, a lot is still:

it seams to be near, so close

comming from the prairie over the green mantle   

to the city of graves and crying faces;

I’m getting closer, I step

As never the silent thresholds of death,

let me looking, the humble gravestone I see

belonged to the purest been that my soul cries;

come, heart of mine, and simple spread

just like never, your tears now!

 

Translated by Mirih Berbin

Juan Antonio Pérez Bonalde 

(Caracas, 1846 - La Guaira, 1892 ) Poet and translator. He is a venezuelan poet considered one of the greatest exponents of the romanticism in our country. Late comes the romanticism to Venezuela with the poems of Perez Bonalde. His life was determined by poverty and exile, hard time, not well paid Jobs, the loose of members of his family, but nothing destroyed his desires of writing. Some historians have told that after Andres Bello, Pérez Bonalde was the greatest and the most Cosmopolitan venezuelan writer in the XIX Century. His book: Back to the country, is considered a national reference in writing.