Ballad of Black Pain F. G. Lorca translation

                To Jose Navarro Pardo.

When roosters await the dawn
their beaks and voices abide,
Soledad Montoya appears
on the darkened hillside.
She smells of horses, her colours
copper and bronze could borrow,
her breasts are dark ringing anvils
singing the song of sorrow. 
"Soledad, who are you seeking
in the night so lonely and sad?"
"I am seeking the one I've lost,
you cannot help me with that.
I came for what I came,
my darling, my life, my bread."
"Oh Soledad, my pain,
the sea would swallow a horse
that is seeking the waves.
The sea would swallow insane."
"Don't tell me about the sea,
the flowering deadly reefs.
My pain is growing roots
beneath the rusting old leaves."
"Soledad, what pain you carry!
What grievous pain you nurse!
Your teas are bitter lemons,
the juice of the bitter Earth."
"My pain I cannot bear.
Insane, I run around
from the gate to the house,
my braids are wiping the ground.
Black pain, how it invades
From dress to skin, how it cries!
Ay, my beautiful linen!
Ay, the poppies, my thighs!"
"Soledad, go and bathe your body,
this pain is your destroyer.
Bath in the raspberry water,
let go, Soledad Montoya!"
The river sings below,
makes lace with needles of pines,
and light creates a new crown
from the flowering pumpkin vines.
Oh pain! Oh gypsy pain!
Crystal clean and alone.
Oh anguish of hidden channels
and of the distant dawn.