La Pulpera de Santa Lucía
Héctor Pedro Blomberg
The Grocer of Santa Lucia
She was blonde and her sky-blue eyes
Reflected the glory of the day
And she sang like a lark
The grocer of Santa Lucia.
She was the flower of the old parish.
Which gaucho didn't love her?
The soldiers from four barracks
Sighed in the grocery store.
The mazorquero troubadour sang to her
With a sweet moan of guitars
By the grille that smelled of jasmine,
In the courtyard that smelled of daisies.
"With all my soul I love you, grocer,
And someday you'll have to be mine,
While the guitars of Santa Lucia
Fill the neighborhood nights."
She was taken by a troubadour from Lavalle
When the year forty was dying;
Her sky-blue eyes no longer illuminate
The parish of Santa Lucia.
The rose trumpets did not return
To sing vidalas and skies to her.
At the grocery store's grille
The jasmines wept with jealousy.
And the mazorquero troubadour returned
To sing in the empty courtyard
The mournful and final serenade
That the wind from the river carried away:
"Where are you with your sky-blue eyes,
Oh grocer who was never mine?"
The guitars, oh how they weep for you,
The guitars of Santa Lucia!
