Castro Alves from Brazil, for whom did you sing? <br />Did you sing for the flower? For the water <br />whose beauty whispered words to the stones? <br />Did you sing to the eyes, to the torn profile <br />of the woman you once loved? For the spring? <br /> <br />Yes, but those petals were not dewed, <br />those black waters had no words, <br />those eyes were those who saw death, <br />still burning the tortures behind love, <br />Spring was splashed with blood. <br /> <br />I sang for the slaves, aboard the ships <br />as a dark branch of wrath. <br />They travelled, and bled from the ships <br />leaving us the weight of a stolen blood. <br /> <br />I sang in those days against the inferno, <br />against the sharp languages of greed, <br />against the gold drenched in the torment, <br />against the hand that rose the whip, <br />against the maestros of darkness. <br /> <br />Each rose had one dead man in their roots. <br />The light, the night, the sky were covered in tears, <br />the eyes separated from wounded hands <br />and it was my voice the only one to fill the silence. <br /> <br />I wanted that from the man we could be rescued, <br />I believed that the route passed through the man, <br />and from there destiny would be made. <br />I sang for those who had no voice. <br />My voice hit doors that until then were closed <br />so that, fighting, Freedom could be let in. <br /> <br />Castro Alves from Brazil, now that your pure book <br />is reborn to a free land, <br />let me, poet of our America, <br />to crown your head with the laurels of the people. <br />Your voice joined the eternal and loud voice of the men. <br />You sang well. You sang how it must be sung.<br /><br />Pablo Neruda<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/castro-alves-from-brazil/
