Black Chant

Black Chant

(from the original "Cântico Negro" by portuguese poet José Régio. The original version can be found in:

http://users.isr.ist.utl.pt/~cfb/VdS/v120.txt among other places )

"Come this way" -- some tell me with sweet eyes,

streching their arms to me, and sure

it would be good for me to hear them

when they tell me "Come this way"!

I look to them, with loose eyes,

(there are, in my eyes, ironies and weariness)

And I cross my arms,

And never go through there...

This is my glory:

To create inhumanity!

Go along with no one.

--- For I live with the same lack of will

with wich I tore my mother's womb!

No, I won't go through there! I'll only go through where

my own footsteps lead me!

If for what I seek to know none of you can answer

why do you repeat at me "Come this way"?

I prefer to slip on muddy alleys

Swirl in the winds,

Like rags, dragging their bleeding feet,

Than go through there.

If I came into the world, was

Only to deflower virgin forests,

And draw my own feet in the sand unexplored!

The most I do is worth nothing.

How, then, will you be,

Who give me axes, tools and courage,

For me to overcome my obstacles??...

Flows, through your veins, old grandparent's blood

And you love what is easy!

I love the Far, and the Mirage,

I love the abyss, the torrents, the deserts...

Go! You have roads,

You have gardens, you have flower beds,

you have nations(1), you have ceilngs,

And you have rules, and treaties, and philosophers, and sages.

I got my madness!

I rise it, like a torch, burning in the dark night,

And feel foam and blood, and songs on the lips...

God and the Devil are the ones guiding me, no one else.

All had father, all had mother,

But I, who never begin or end,

Was born out of the love that is between God and the Devil.

Ah, no one give me pious intentions!

Nobody ask me definitions!

Nobody tells me: "Come this way"!

My life is a storm broken loose.

It is a wave welling up.

It's a extra atom that was excited...

I don't know through where I'll go,

I don't know where I'll go,

--- I know I won't go through there

(1) "Pátria" in the original, wich refers to one's Home Country

Poor in quality but rich in good intentions, translated by Me - 16/Sept/2010, after not finding a better translation :)