We present this work in honor of the poet’s 180th birthday.

 

Behold the pilgrim
How painful and changed!
Slowly leaning on his staff
How lonely he goes on his way!

On his first morning,
Joyful and singing soul
I leave home, like the dawn
The proud little bird leaves its nest.

Air and light, life and flowers,
I search the vast and cold
Region that the innocent fantasy
It adorned with magical glows.

See the world, hear the noise
of the big cities,
And only vanity of vanities
Find everywhere your afflicted spirit

Matter gives to his crying
How much the man offers him;
The laughter on her lips no longer blooms,
And I forget the native voice of the song.

He became thoughtful;
The clouds and the waves
His confidants are, and he deals alone
The most spare and most elusive site.

To his grief he answers
in the silent night,
The declining star weary
And in the maternal pielago it hides.

Vuelve, return to your center!
Nature to the unhappy
cry out; _Go back!_ a voice also tells him
Who always talks to him, friend, inside,

Oh sad! in the distance
See the days gone by
And to enjoy their joys again
Concentrate revived hope.

Impossible! madness!…
When was he able to his source
Reverse the miserable torrent
What tasted of the seas the bitterness?

It’s up the hill
With bad insurance I pass;
From setting sun to scant glow
The valley of childhood is mastered.

Ouch! that shady valley
that the paternal house
take shelter; that rumor with which it accompanies
Its soft tumbles the sacred river;

That embalmed aura
let your temples pray,
To a sick heart that wishes
Your old loneliness, do not say anything?

The poor pilgrim
He neither hears, nor sees, nor feels;
Of the Homeland the image in his mind
There is no longer anything but a divine ideal.

Invisible touches
And his eyelids close
Pious angel, and the illusion banishes,
And the sweet smile returns to his mouth.

What a silent farewell!
Who dead would believe him?
Looking at the true Homeland!
He is sleeping the dream of life!