Day: February 27, 2017

Caveat: When the rivers freeze and summer ends

Background Noise / Internet & Blogging / Not My Poetry

I posted this song quite some time ago (more than 5 years). I’m posting again because the video link at the old posting “rotted” (the so-called “link-rot” problem that long-lived blogs have), and anyway I never posted the lyrics in that old posting. It’s one of my favorites by Dylan.

Bob Dylan (with Johnny Cash), “Girl From The North Country.”
[UPDATE 2020-03-24: link rot repair (again!)]
Lyrics.

If you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds

Please see for me if her hair hangs long
If it rolls and flows all down her breast
Please see for me if her hair hangs long
For that’s the way I remember her best

I’m a-wonderin’ if she remembers me at all
Many times I’ve often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day

picture[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Quatrain #7

A Daily Poem / Ballad / Book 1 / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #211 on new numbering scheme)

Pues iba caminando yo,
de paso raudo fui.
Me devoró la oscuridad.
Así permanecí.

This is a poem written in English ballad meter. It’s not so easy to write a poem in Spanish using this English metrical pattern. In particular, although Spanish possesses clear stressed and unstressed syllables, natural Spanish rhythms are strongly trochaic, so forcing it into an iambic line is quite awkward.

Back to Top