Info: This poem is the first in a sequence of poems about the Pyrenees (the mountain range running along the border of France and Spain) collectively called ‘Pirinenques’, roughly meaning ‘Poems of the Pyrenees’.
‘Pirinenques‘
High in the Pyrenees
the flowers are drained with pallor,
the flowers are of weakened blue,
and tinged with bruised colour:
sad ones of the high mounts
are they, the shrouded crests,
and sad so too the herds
across the meadows spread,
so too is the upright shepherd
a figure of loneliness.
And the enfeebled sun
brings forth no heat, is colourless;
the forest wretched and woody,
and the grass short and ashen;
rocky and dismal grey
the peaks of those mountains,
all enveloped in snow
of eternal white patches,
and billowing around
the mist runs and passes.
At dusk, from within the valleys
the mist begins to rise,
and with its blanketing cover
goes solemnly up the mountain side.
Joan Maragall (1860-1911)
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Original Catalan Text
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