Note 12 — Chapter IV · THE ROMANTIC TRANSFORMATION (1830-1870)
Reading edition
Oh, Lord, I feel and well you see that I am dying as I breathe this air; let me live, O Lord, let me feel, once again the joys of my native hearth. I would sleep in the shade of the cocoa-trees with their leaves as my canopy; and see whether I could catch the white butterfly that flies in the orchard. I want to sit beside the little stream at the fall of dusk, alone in the twilight filled with dreams of the future. Give me the sweet spots where I romped with the other children, let me see once again the sky of my fatherland, the skies of my Brazil. My grave will be among the mango-trees, bathed in the light of the moon. And there I shall sleep contentedly in the shadow of my hearth. The waterfalls will weep in deep-felt grief because I died so soon, while I in my sepulchre shall dream of my loves, in the land where I was born.