On that big estate there is no rain
it’s the sweat of my brow that waters the crops:
On that big estate there is coffee ripe
and that cherry-redness
is drops of my blood turned sap.
The coffee will be roasted,ground, and crushed,will turn black, black with the colour of the contratado.*
Black with the colour of the contratado!
Ask the birds that sing,
the streams in carefree wandering
and the high wind from inland:
Who gets up early? Who goes to toil?
Who is it carries on the long road
the hammock or bunch of kernels?
Who reaps and for pay gets scorn
rotten maize, rotten fish,
ragged clothes, fifty angolares†
beating for biting back?
Who?
Who makes the millet grow
and the orange groves to flower?
– Who?
Who gives the money for the boss to buy
cars, machinery, women
and Negro heads for motors?
Who makes the white man prosper,
grow big-bellied – get much money?
And the birds that sing,
the streams in carefree wandering
and the high wind from inland
will answer:
– Monangambeeee…
Ah! Let me at least climb the palm trees
Let me drink wine, palm wine
and fuddled by my drunkness forget
– Monangambeee…