El preso de San Juan Ulúa [English translation]

I find myself imprisoned behind bars,

behind the bars of my prison,

I'd like to sing, I can't cry;

the sad resentments of my pain.

I find myself imprisoned for an ungrateful -

- an ungrateful woman I loved greatly,

and so anger told me to kill.

and so that ungrateful woman abandoned me.

One morning I came out to the jury

and on a bench I was told to sit,

and the lawyer and the judge of the court

sentenced me as guilty.

"The death sentence!" the people plead,

oh dear God, how I had felt!

and sincerely I confess

that I shuddered like a child.

Three days ago at my window

a little bird came to sing to me;

it was my mother in the shape of an angel

who had come to cry for her beloved son.

It wasn't the boat or the nacelle

that awaited me in the wide sea,

it's the horrible San Juan de Ulúa

where I will pay my sentence.

When I have died amidst the seas

go and bury my remains,

by God I ask for a prayer;

for I was a murderer for having loved too much.