Colombian Women Writers from the 19th Century

Agripina Montes del Valle

Born: 1844
Died: 5 May 1912

Agripina Montes del Valle was a Colombian writer, poet and intellectual recognized for her works dedicated to the beauty of her country and to the women of Colombia and Latin America at the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Agripina pursued a career as a Colombian university professor and writer. She came from a middle-class family with access to education and culture. Among her relatives were renowned journalists and politicians for the time but she is considered one of the few women who managed to develop her career as a writer without any male support.

¿Qué buscas en lo ignoto?
¿Cómo, adónde, por quién vas empujando?
Envuelto en los profusos torbellinos
de la hervidora tromba de tu espuma
e irisado en fantástico espejismo,
con frenesí de ciego terremoto
entre tú aérea clámide de bruma
te lanzas despeñando
gigante volador sobre el abismo,
se irgue a tu paso murallón innoble
cual vigilante esfinge del Leteo
más de su ritmo bárbaro al redoble
vacila con medroso bamboleo.
¡Adiós! ¡Adiós! Ya a reflejar no alcanza
del alma la centella fugitiva
ni tu ideal, fastuosa perspectiva,
ni el prodigioso ritmo de tu danza.
Y así, como se pierden a lo lejos
blancos al alba y al morir bermejos
en nívea blonda de la errante nube
los primorosos e impalpables velos
de tu sutil neblina
va en tus ondas mi cántico, arrollado,
bajo tu insigne mole confundido,
e inermes, ante al hado
canto y cantor, sepultará el olvido.
 

"Al Tequendama" (1887)