Agua, ¿dónde vas?
 
Riyendo voy por el río
a las orillas del mar.

Mar, ¿adónde vas?

Río arriba voy buscando
fuente para descansar.

Chopo, y tú, ¿qué harás?

No quiero decirte nada. 
Yo... ¡temblar!

¿Qué deseo, qué no deseo, 
por el río y por [la]1 mar?

(Cuatro pájaros sin rumbo
en el alto chopo están.)

About the headline (FAQ)

View text without footnotes

Confirmed with Federico García Lorca, Poet in Spain, New York: Alfred A. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2017, page 32.

¹ Andreo: "el"

Text Authorship:

• by Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936), no title [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Dante Andreo (b. 1949), "Agua ¿dónde vas?", published 1999, copyright © 1999, from Cantos del Agua, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Sheena Phillips (b. 1958), "Agua ¿Donde Vas?", copyright © 2015 [ sa chorus and piano ], from Niño, no. 1, Boosey & Hawkes [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Grant Hicks [Guest Editor] , Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2026-07-05
Line count: 13
Word count: 56