La Guitarra!

Federico Garcia Lorca

A Translation

The lament of the guitar begins.

The wine cups of dawn are broken.

The lament of the guitar begins.

It is useless to hush it.

It is impossible to hush it.

It weeps monotonous as the water weeps,

As the wind weeps over the snowfall.

It is impossible to hush it.

It weeps for things far away.

Sand of the warm South,

Asking for white camellias.

It weeps arrow without target,

Evening without morning,

And the first dead bird upon the branch.

Oh, guitar!

Heart grievously wounded by five swords.

Note: When I wrote the song I repeated sections of the poem & re-jigged it all to fit the music I'd written for it. No translation can do a poem justice…