Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel wrote "Sóller" from longing.

The sky is preparing secrets,

Mandarin murmurs.

And the shores of the wind

Are scattering oranges.

I can taste orchards. I lie down

On cushioned valleys

Leaves give of freshness

Making pleasant fans,

Curtains of perfume,

Fluttering gestures.

The breeze paints shades

Of caramel in the breeze.

My hair has been dishevelled

And my shadow turned right around.

The sugar in the air

Tickles my face,

With flower preserves

And shivering syrups.

Dandelions

Go up and down my spine.

When honesty turns to ice,

It seems it is made of flames.

The star of Bethlehem appears

With a glass of iced milk.

Its sweat

Comes through its clothes.

«Sóller» Imitació del foc (Imitation of fire)​, 1938

Translated by Richard Mansell. Performed by Gaspar Valero.

(Palma, 1913 – el Brull, Montseny, 1938). Rosselló-Pòrcel was a poet, essayist and translator. When poets die young they gain a special place in the literary pantheon. Rosselló-Pòrcel died virtually alone, outside the island, in wartime, when one could think, given his early work, that a rich career in poetry and literature lay ahead of him. He lived in the neighbourhood of Puig de Sant Pere in Barcelona as a dedicated student, and when back on Majorca he visited Sóller on the train that had just been opened at that time. In Palma he was a pupil of Gabriel Alomar and he studied Literature at Barcelona under the tutelage of Carles Riba amongst others. He established a solid friendship with Salvador Espriu and they travelled together, along with other Catalan and Spanish students and tutors, on a cruise around the Mediterranean, which must have been a landmark for many of those young people. Rosselló’s work is considered a break with the previous poetic tradition, especially in Majorca. He abandoned a Neo-Baroque style to include elements from surrealism in his work, following the new avant-guard tendencies present throughout Europe. His poetry was published posthumously in 1938 with the title Imitació del foc (Imitation of fire). He is the author of immortal poems of longing for Majorca, including the poem “Sóller”, where we see a landscape steeped with smells and senses ends, and the poem ends with an ironic nod.

The valley of Sóller has been an emblem of the literary and pictorial landscape of Majorca, especially throughout the 20th century. It would be difficult to find any writer, from Majorca or who has visited from abroad, who has not written something about Sóller or its valley, above all praising its landscape. Sóller has also been home to writers, from Guillem de Torroella, author of the Arthurian Faula (14th century), to Guillem Colom, Maria Mayol and Miquel Arbona. In his own poem, Rosselló-Pòrcel condenses everything that the landscape offers, in a tone that is familiar, somewhat undressing the myths, something that is beautiful but accessible. The poet begins from an earlier tradition seen in poems also describing Sóller, such as Pons i Gallarza's "Los tarongers de Sóller" (Sóller's orange trees), Joan Alcover's "Record de Sóller" (Memory of Sóller) and Miquel dels Sants Oliver's "El perfum de Sóller" (Perfume of Sóller), but it adapts these models to modernise them, turning our senses on their head with perceptions of the valley, the torrent, the orange trees, a certain cosmopolitanism coming from inhabitants who have made their money abroad, then breaking this atmosphere with four final lines full of home-grown irony and a touch of irreverence.