The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #103865   Message #2739163
Posted By: Jim Dixon
05-Oct-09 - 05:40 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Swallow / La Golondrina
Subject: Lyr Add: LA GOLONDRINA
Spanish lyrics and a piano arrangement for LA GOLONDRINA can be found in Canciones Populares by Allena Luce (Boston, etc.: Silver, Burdett y Compañía, 1921), page 62:

Adonde irá veloz y fatigada
La golondrina que de aquí se va,
O si en el viento se hallará extraviada
Buscando abrigo y no lo encontrará.
Junto a mi lecho le pondré su nido
En donde pueda la estación pasar;
También yo estoy en la región perdido
¡Oh cielo santo! y sin poder volar.

Dejé también mi patria idolatrada,
Esa mansión que me miró nacer,
Mi vida es hoy errante y angustiada
I ya no puedo a mi mansión volver.
Ave querida, amada peregrina,
Mi corazón al tuyo estrecharé,
Oiré tu canto, tierna golondrina,
Recordaré mi patria y lloraré.


This English translation (in addition to a musical arrangement and Spanish lyrics) is found in Roy and Ray in Mexico by Mary Wright Plummer (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1912), page 397:

Where will it go, the swift and weary swallow
That from this place is winging forth its way?
What if a straying wind it blindly follow,
Seeking where none exists a sheltering stay!
Near to my bedside shall it make its homing,
While the long season slowly passes by,
For also I in this strange land am roaming,
And I, O blessed heaven, cannot fly!

I too my cherished country have deserted,
The little house where first I saw the light—
My life has wretched been since I departed,
Nor toward that home can I again wing flight.
Beloved swallow, pilgrim dear and slender,
My heart with thine companionship shall keep,
Hearing thy voice in song, O swallow tender,
I shall recall my land and softly weep.