The Lost Bird

^{translated from the Spanish by William Cullen Bryant}

          My bird has flown away,
Far out of sight has flown, I know not where.
          Look in your lawn, I pray,
          Ye maidens, kind and fair,
And see if my beloved bird be there.

          His eyes are full of light;
The eagle of the rock has such an eye;
          And plumes, exceeding bright,
          Round his smooth temples lie,
And sweet his voice and tender as a sigh.

          Look where the grass is gay
With summer blossoms, haply there he cowers;
          And search, from spray to spray,
          The leafy laurel-bowers,
For well he loves the laurels and the flowers.

          Find him, but do not dwell,
With eyes too fond, on the fair form you see,
          Nor love his song too well;
          Send him, at once, to me,
Or leave him to the air and liberty.

          For only from my hand
He takes the seed into his golden beak,
          And all unwiped shall stand
          The tears that wet my cheek,
Till I have found the wanderer I seek.

          My sight is darkened o’er,
Whene’er I miss his eyes, which are my day,
          And when I hear no more
          The music of his lay,
My heart in utter sadness faints away.

El pájaro perdido

   
¡Huyó con vuelo incierto,
Y de mis ojos ha desparecido! . . .
¡Mirad si a vuestro huerto
Mi pájaro querido,
Niñas hermosas, por acaso ha huido!

   Sus ojos relucientes
Son como los del águila orgullosa;
Plumas resplandecientes
En la cabeza airosa
Lleva, y su voz es tierna y armoniosa.

   Mirad si cuidadoso
Junto a las flores se escondió en la grama:
Ese laurel frondoso
Mirad rama por rama,
Que él los laureles y las flores ama.

   Si le halláis por ventura,
No os enamore su amoroso acento;
No os prende su hermosura:
Volvédmele al momento,
O dejadle, si no, libre en el viento.

   Porque su pico de oro
Sólo en mi mano toma la semilla,
Y no enjugaré el lloro
Que veis en mi mejilla
Hasta encontrar mi prófuga avecilla.

   Mi vista se oscurece
Si sus ojos no ve, que son mi día;
Mi ánima desfallece
Con la melancolía
De no escucharle ya su melodía.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 15, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“The Lost Bird” first appeared as “El pájaro perdido” in Carolina Coronado’s Poesías (Imprenta de Alegría y Charlain, 1843). Later it appeared in an English translation in the Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant (D. Appleton and Company, 1878). The poem is a slight variation upon a quintilla, a Spanish form that consists of rhyming quintets with octosyllabic lines, though both Coronado and Bryant’s versions disregard the syllable count. Bryant, today regarded as one of the eminent Hispanists of his time, first encountered Coronado’s verse on his initial visit to Spain, during which he met Coronado’s husband, Horatio Justus Perry, former secretary of the United States Legation in Spain. In the notes to Poetical Works, Bryant lauds Coronado’s work and remarks that “[t]he spirit of all her poetry is humane and friendly to the best interests of mankind.” However, despite his other remarks that, unlike many male poets of the Spanish tradition, Coronado did not write verse as a means to political or diplomatic ends, and instead that her verses are “simply the effect of inclination and facility” (and, as such, that they “possess the mens divinior”), Coronado is well-remembered for affecting diplomatic and political issues in Spain, especially for championing Spanish support of abolition in the United States and promoting abolitionist ideals through her poetry.