SERRANILLA
by: Íñigo
López de Mendoza (1398-1458)
- ROM Calatrava
as I took my way
- At holy Mary's shrine to kneel and pray,
- And sleep upon my eyelids heavy lay,
- There where the ground was very rough and wild,
- I lost my path and met a peasant child:
- From Finojosa, with the herds around her,
- There in the fields I found her.
-
- Upon a meadow green with tender grass,
- With other rustic cowherds, lad and lass,
- So sweet a thing to see I watched her pass:
- My eyes could scarce believe her what they found her,
- There with the herds around her.
-
- I do not think that roses in the Spring
- Are half so lovely in their fashioning:
- My heart must needs avow this secret thing,
- That had I known her first as then I found her,
- From Finojosa, with the herds around her,
- I had not strayed so far her face to see
- That it might rob me of my liberty.
-
- I questioned her, to know what she might say:
- "Has she of Finojosa passed this way?"
- She smiled and answered me: "In vain you sue,
- Full well my heart discerns the hope in you:
- But she of whom you speak, and have not found her.
- Her heart is free, no thought of love has bound her,
- Here with the herds around her."
--Translated by John Pierrepont Rice
"Serranilla" is reprinted
from Hispanic Anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish
by English and North American Poets. Ed. Thomas Walsh. New
York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1920. |
MORE POEMS BY ÍÑIGO LÓPEZ
DE MENDOZA |
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