GABRIEL DE LA CONCEPCION VALDES

("PLACIDO")
Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, penname Plácido, was executed by firing squad on June 28, 1844 in the city of Matanzas. He and 10 others were accused of conspiring to instigate an uprising of slaves that would bring about a new government in Cuba, where he (Placida) would be “viceroy.” The “conspiracy,” -- by all accounts fabricated by the Spanish prosecutor of the ferocious administration of Governor General O’Donnell -- came to be known as the “Ladder Conspiracy” (Conspiración de la Escalera), because information was extracted from the accused slaves by flogging them while tied to a ladder.

Plácido was a poet whose sonnets were being recited by memory by the most humble peasants and slaves. Posthumously, he came to be considered as one of the most popular Spanish-American poets. During his imprisonment and trial, while he was being tormented by the guards, he found time to write some of his best work. To his mother, who had abandoned him to a foundling home and who never really cared about him, he wrote the poem reprinted below.
Farewell to My Mother

The appointed lot has come upon me, mother,
The mournful ending of my years of strife,
This changing world I leave, and to another
In blood and terror goes my spirit's life.

But thou, grief-smitten, cease thy mortal weeping
And let thy soul her wonted peace regain;
I fall for right, and thoughts of thee are sweeping
Across my lyre to wake its dying strains.

A strain of joy and gladness, free, unfailing
All glorious and holy, pure, divine,
And innocent, unconscious as the wailing
I uttered on my birth; and I resign

Even now, my life, even now descending slowly,
Faith's mantle folds me to my slumbers holy.
Mother, farewell! God keep thee -- and forever!

Translated by William Cullen Bryant.
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