The Grieved Lands of Africa by Agostinho Neto

Agostinho Neto

The grieved lands of Africa
In the tearful woes of ancient and modern slave
In the degrading sweat of impure dance
Of other seas
Grieved
The grieved lands of Africa
In the infamous sensation of the stunning perfume of the
Flower
Crushed in the forest
By the wickedness of iron and fire
The grieved lands
The grieved lands of Africa
In the dream soon undone in jinglings of gaolers’ keys
And in the stifled laughter and victorious voice of laments
And in the unconscious brilliance of hidden sensations
Of the grieved lands of Africa

Alive 
In themselves and with us alive
They bubble up in dreams
Decked with dances by baobabs over balances
By the antelope
In the perpetual alliance of everything that lives
They shout out the sound of life
Shout it
Even the corpses thrown up by the Atlantic
In putrid offering of incoherence
And death and in the clearness
Of rivers
They live
The grieved land of Africa
In the harmonious sound of consciences
Contained in the honest blood of men 
In the strong desire of men
In the sincerity
In the pure and simple rightness of the stars’
Existence
They live
The grieved lands of Africa
Because we are living
And are imperishable particles
Of the grieved lands of Africa.

— Agostinho Neto

Agostinho Neto, in full António Agostinho Neto, 

(born September 17, 1922, Icolo e Bengo, 

Angola—died September 10, 1979, Moscow, Russia, 

U.S.S.R.), Angolan poet, physician, and politician

 who served as the first president (1975–79) of

 the People’s Republic of Angola.