River Miño as it exits Quinte, county O Corgo in Lugo (Spain)

Source: Xelo2004. Wikimedia Commons

15.   Winter Months     (Meses do inverno)

(Follas Novas, 1880)

Folklore

The Celtic band Milladoiro captured the spirit of a normal Galician winter in their piece, "Invernía" (track 11 of the 1989 album As Fadas de Estraño Nome).

Milladoiro

Meses do inverno fríos,
Que eu amo a todo amar;
Meses dos fartos ríos
I o dóce amor do lar.

Meses das tempestades,
Imaxen da delor
Que afrixe as mocedades
I as vidas corta en frol.

Chegade e, tras do outono
Que as follas fai caer,
Nelas deixá que o sono
Eu durma do non ser.

E cando o sol fermoso
De abril torne a sorrir,
Que alume o meu reposo,
Xa non o meu sofrir.

Cold months of winter
That I love with all my love,
Months of rivers that run full
And the sweet love of home.

Months of wild storms,
Image of the pain
That besets the young
And severs lives in bloom.

Come after the autumn
That makes the leaves fall
And let me sleep among them
The slumber of dissolution.

And when the lovely sun
Of April returns smiling
Let it shine upon my repose,
No longer upon my suffering.