Poems by Manuel de Zequeira

Manuel de Zequeira is considered the first Cuban poet, great connoisseur of the lyric, pioneer in assuming the cultivation of poetry systematically and without the improvisation of his predecessors; It came to surpass in quality and originality its Latin American and peninsular contemporaries.
He wrote epic-heroic poetry and also satirical and moralizing; but his two most celebrated works are the sonnet “La Ilusión” and the “Oda de la Piña”, written in the midst of the process of birth of Cuban national identity and the beginning of a type of localist poetry.
“Oda de la Piña” is one of his most celebrated poems of his poetic career extolling this fruit as a symbol of the island of Cuba. In this bucolic composition Zequeira creates a fantastic biography of the pineapple from birth until it is taken to Olympus, where it triumphs and is acclaimed by all the gods.
This anthology of poems by Manuel de Zequeira includes the best of his work.

The reason for my verses

Sing the forced in his fatal torment,
And to the sound of the oar the sailor sings,
Singing, to sleep the fisherman frightens,
And the singing captive is glad:

To the artisan in his entertainment
He is amused by the voice in his throat;
The blacksmith sings that the metal breaks,
And sings the helpless macilento.

The most unfortunate among his sorrows
With the harmonic voice he mitigates the crying,
And the weight of their barbarous chains;

Well, if the sweet singing comforts so much
To the wretched mortal in his labors,
I sing for mocking my misadventures.

Fragment of the work