La Viejecita De Mozambique

I am Victoriano, a Basque wanderer,
I arrived in Mozambique looking for a flower,
As the evening fell, I stopped my path,
With my Basque beret and my accordion.

At the door of that inn,
An old lady identified me:
"The seven daggers of Santa Maria!
You are from Spain, just like me!

In your clear almond blossom eyes,
I see Cibeles, a spring of love,
And in your joyful laughter, crazy revelry,
The people running in the main square".

And I, Victoriano, a Basque wanderer,
Sipped a glass of aged sherry,
A tear filled with melancholy
Ran down the cheek of that woman.

"Tell me about Spain, brave 'mutil',
What about your Bilbao? What about my Madrid?
I came to this land so many years ago,
The civil war pushed me to this fate.

Tell me if the old lanterns still light up
In the Cava Baja of yesterday's Madrid,
Do the humble waters still flow
In the Manzanares that saw me born?

If one day you return to those paths,
I want to ask you a favor from the soul:
Bring me a handful of that holy land,
For I want to kiss it before I die".

- I want to tell you, my friends,
That when I returned to the homeland,
I took a handful of Spanish soil
To bring it to the old lady in Mozambique.

I am Victoriano, a Basque wanderer,
I returned to Mozambique looking for a flower,
As the evening fell, I stopped my path,
With my Basque beret and my accordion.

What my absorbed eyes beheld
Cannot fit in verses, nor in a song:
She lay prostrate, gravely ill,
The old lady immediately recognized me.

Without saying a word then,
Under the dim light of an old oil lamp,
She took that handful of Spanish soil
And while kissing it, she murmured:
"Thank you, young Basque, may God bless you,
Now I die happy and in peace,
Because I have communed with my land,
Thinking of my people and their freedom".

- I want to tell you, my friends,
That I walked away crying with my Basque beret
And my wandering accordion,
And one thought pierced my senses:
That as important is the one who dies
With a rifle in hand defending
The freedom of his land,
As the one who dies in exile,
Dreaming of returning to it-.