De “La Maleïda” [cant IV, Canigó]
Jacint Verdaguer
Jacint Verdaguer
What horrid wails must Mother Earth have uttered
Giving birth, in younger years, to this range!
Overcome with throes by day, groans by night,
To hoist these mountains from her cratered core
Up to the clear sunlight, like waves that swell
From deep within the sea!
One day, a great quake opened up her crust,
Dam through which, once cracked, burst with all its might
The seething granite’s boiling river flow,
Hardening fast, when ice-kissed by the winds,
And the sea, to raise it higher, hurled to its top
Her fish and sandy deep.
Years passed, centuries piled on centuries,
Before this bone-frame of primeval giants
Dressed itself in topsoil and timberland,
Before the crags grew moss, the meadows flowers,
Before the forests filled with thronging birds,
The thronging birds with song.
Selected Poems of Jacint Verdaguer: A Bilingual Edition. Edició i traducció de Ronald Puppo, amb una introducció de Ramon Pinyol i Torrents. The Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2007.
© 2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
Traduït per Ronald Puppo
