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Selected Poems
A major new translation of one of Italy's greatest modern poets
Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) was a pioneer of the Modernist movement in Italian poetry and is widely regarded as one of the leading Italian poets of the twentieth century. His verse is renowned and loved for its powerful insight and emotion, and its exquisite music. Yet, unlike many of his peers, Ungaretti has never been adequately presented to English readers. This large bilingual selection, translated with great sensitivity and fidelity by Andrew Frisardi, captures Ungaretti in all of his phases: from his early poems, written in the trenches of northern Italy during World War I, to the finely crafted erotic and religious poetry of his second period, to the visceral, elegiac poetry of the years following the death of his son and the occupation of Rome during World War II, to the love poems of the poet's old age.
Frisardi's in-depth introduction details the world in which Ungaretti's work took shape and exerted its influence. In addition to the poet's own annotations, an autobiographical afterword, "Ungaretti on Ungaretti," further illuminates the poet's life and art. Here is a compelling, rewarding, and comprehensive version of the work of one of the greatest modern European poets.
Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) was a pioneer of the Modernist movement in Italian poetry and is widely regarded as one of the leading Italian poets of the twentieth century. His verse is renowned and loved for its powerful insight and emotion, and its exquisite music. Yet, unlike many of his peers, Ungaretti has never been adequately presented to English readers. This large bilingual selection, translated with great sensitivity and fidelity by Andrew Frisardi, captures Ungaretti in all of his phases: from his early poems, written in the trenches of northern Italy during World War I, to the finely crafted erotic and religious poetry of his second period, to the visceral, elegiac poetry of the years following the death of his son and the occupation of Rome during World War II, to the love poems of the poet's old age.
Frisardi's in-depth introduction details the world in which Ungaretti's work took shape and exerted its influence. In addition to the poet's own annotations, an autobiographical afterword, "Ungaretti on Ungaretti," further illuminates the poet's life and art. Here is a compelling, rewarding, and comprehensive version of the work of one of the greatest modern European poets.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
12 people are currently reading
581 people want to read
About the author
Giuseppe Ungaretti
202 books135 followersGiuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as ermetismo, he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned with futurism. Like many futurists, he took an irredentist position during World War I. Ungaretti debuted as a poet while fighting in the trenches, publishing one of his best-known pieces, L'allegria ("The Joy").
During the interwar period, Ungaretti was a collaborator of Benito Mussolini (whom he met during his socialist accession), as well as a foreign-based correspondent for Il Popolo d'Italia and La Gazzetta del Popolo. While briefly associated with the Dadaists, he developed ermetismo as a personal take on poetry. After spending several years in Brazil, he returned home during World War II, and was assigned a teaching post at the University of Rome, where he spent the final decades of his life and career. Ungaretti's Fascist past was the subject of controversy.
During the interwar period, Ungaretti was a collaborator of Benito Mussolini (whom he met during his socialist accession), as well as a foreign-based correspondent for Il Popolo d'Italia and La Gazzetta del Popolo. While briefly associated with the Dadaists, he developed ermetismo as a personal take on poetry. After spending several years in Brazil, he returned home during World War II, and was assigned a teaching post at the University of Rome, where he spent the final decades of his life and career. Ungaretti's Fascist past was the subject of controversy.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 9, 2020
The poet goes there
then returns to the light with his songs
and scatters them
Of this poetry
there remains to me
that nothing of inexhaustible secrecy.
***
The sky's flushed face
wakens oases
for love's nomad
***
Each moment
I have lived
once before
in a deep epoch outside myself
I am far off with memory
following those lost lives
***
Love no longer is that storm
That in the glare of night
Not long ago still trapped me
Between insomnia and frenzy
Flash from a lighthouse
Towards which the old Captain
Calmly sails.
then returns to the light with his songs
and scatters them
Of this poetry
there remains to me
that nothing of inexhaustible secrecy.
***
The sky's flushed face
wakens oases
for love's nomad
***
Each moment
I have lived
once before
in a deep epoch outside myself
I am far off with memory
following those lost lives
***
Love no longer is that storm
That in the glare of night
Not long ago still trapped me
Between insomnia and frenzy
Flash from a lighthouse
Towards which the old Captain
Calmly sails.
November 23, 2024
ĆILIM
Svaka se boja širi i pruža
u drugim bojama
Da bi bila više sama kad je pogledaš
Stihove ovog, novog prevoda Dejana Ilića, imao sam prilike da pretpremijerno čujem na talasima Radio Beograda. Utisak je, naravno, bio snažan; Ungaretijeva lirika je obuzimajuća, a ton je, rekao bih, sjajno pogođen – dragoceno je obnavljati prevode, nanovo uspostavljati mostove. I čak i kad ne znate jezik, a ja ne znam italijanski, možete da prepoznate da li je neko rešenje srećno pronađeno ili je nešto omašeno, čak i rđavo. Dobar primer za to je, nažalost, vrlo loše izdanje Euđenija Montalea, još jednog izuzetnog italijanskog pesnika, čije su „Prilikeˮ prevedene ne samo bez osećaja za pesnički jezik, već i sa nekim krupnijim omaškama, o kojima sam već pisao. Ovde je, izgleda, sasvim drukčiji slučaj: Ilićev učinio je Ungaretija bliskim, elegantnim, dubokim, ali i zvučnim. I kud dalje: ovo je na svaki način prvorazredna poezija, jedna od onih knjiga od kojih se uvek može nešto dobiti i koja sa svakim čitanjem raste. Ja, istina, ne volim izbore poezije, već prevođenje zbirke u celini, ali ovde mi čak ni antologičarski pristup nije smetao. Neka! Ovim pregledom se vidi životno i pesničko kretanje puno lepote, predela, razočaranja i podsticajnih nedorečenosti. Od rovova u Prvom svetskom ratu, preko misterije pejzaža i groznice od navale svetla, do izgubljenosti u beskraju noći.
Svaka se boja širi i pruža
u drugim bojama
Da bi bila više sama kad je pogledaš
Stihove ovog, novog prevoda Dejana Ilića, imao sam prilike da pretpremijerno čujem na talasima Radio Beograda. Utisak je, naravno, bio snažan; Ungaretijeva lirika je obuzimajuća, a ton je, rekao bih, sjajno pogođen – dragoceno je obnavljati prevode, nanovo uspostavljati mostove. I čak i kad ne znate jezik, a ja ne znam italijanski, možete da prepoznate da li je neko rešenje srećno pronađeno ili je nešto omašeno, čak i rđavo. Dobar primer za to je, nažalost, vrlo loše izdanje Euđenija Montalea, još jednog izuzetnog italijanskog pesnika, čije su „Prilikeˮ prevedene ne samo bez osećaja za pesnički jezik, već i sa nekim krupnijim omaškama, o kojima sam već pisao. Ovde je, izgleda, sasvim drukčiji slučaj: Ilićev učinio je Ungaretija bliskim, elegantnim, dubokim, ali i zvučnim. I kud dalje: ovo je na svaki način prvorazredna poezija, jedna od onih knjiga od kojih se uvek može nešto dobiti i koja sa svakim čitanjem raste. Ja, istina, ne volim izbore poezije, već prevođenje zbirke u celini, ali ovde mi čak ni antologičarski pristup nije smetao. Neka! Ovim pregledom se vidi životno i pesničko kretanje puno lepote, predela, razočaranja i podsticajnih nedorečenosti. Od rovova u Prvom svetskom ratu, preko misterije pejzaža i groznice od navale svetla, do izgubljenosti u beskraju noći.
July 4, 2023
This guy is just the best. I'd thought I was aware of all the great modernists, but apparently not; Ungaretti is up there with Holderlin, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Rilke, Apollinaire, et al.
I kept writing "haiku" and "j poetry" in the margins, and then was both surprised and not-surprised to later find out that Ungaretti had read Japanese poetry in translation in the 1910s, which had a formative influence on his work. (To be clear, his poems are haiku-like in terms of sensibility and content rather than strict metrical form.)
Ungaretti is almost as good as the very best Japanese poets (Buson, Basho, Shinkei) but adds a European symbolist/modernist sensibility, somehow completely effectively. Forget about Pound, Wright, Kerouac, etc.; Ungaretti is easily, by far, the best Western poet influenced by waka/haiku.
I have yet to work through all the translators, but thus far I can report that Creagh is quite good and Frisardi is just terrible. Also it turns out that my guy Allen Mandelbaum -- the best translator of Virgil -- took a stab at translating Ungaretti in the 1970s, which I'm guessing is amazing.
I kept writing "haiku" and "j poetry" in the margins, and then was both surprised and not-surprised to later find out that Ungaretti had read Japanese poetry in translation in the 1910s, which had a formative influence on his work. (To be clear, his poems are haiku-like in terms of sensibility and content rather than strict metrical form.)
Ungaretti is almost as good as the very best Japanese poets (Buson, Basho, Shinkei) but adds a European symbolist/modernist sensibility, somehow completely effectively. Forget about Pound, Wright, Kerouac, etc.; Ungaretti is easily, by far, the best Western poet influenced by waka/haiku.
I have yet to work through all the translators, but thus far I can report that Creagh is quite good and Frisardi is just terrible. Also it turns out that my guy Allen Mandelbaum -- the best translator of Virgil -- took a stab at translating Ungaretti in the 1970s, which I'm guessing is amazing.
April 8, 2020
To die at the mirage
like thirsty skylarks
Or like the quail
past the sea
into the first thickets
when it has lost
the will to fly
But not live on lament
like a blinded goldfinch
— — —
Walk walk
I have refound
the well of love
In the eye
of thousandth-and-one night
I have rested
On deserted gardens
she descended
like a dove
With the noontime
air that was
a swoon
I gathered for her
oranges and jasmine
— — —
I feel the fever
of this
flood of light
I gather this
day like
fruit that sweetens
Tonight
my remorse
will be like a
dog's bark
lost in the
desert
July 16, 2019
A mesmerising collection of poetry that touched me like no one had done.
I think that out of all the poets I've been reading, he got to me the most.
I felt my hands reaching to touch more than his words. To touch his life, his pain.
I wished to be in Rome, to lean my head on his shoulders and listen to him read those words over and over until there are no verses left anymore. It's unbelievable how many affairs I've been having with dead poets and words /slight giggle/.
I scribbled something poorly, on a whim about him during my walk in a park.
In the periphery
of my nocturnal dome,
in the darkness
of my
ceaseless polychrome
gloam,
my hands roam
seeking
and my beer foams
feeling Ungaretti's
loss, ache, love
make within me
a home.
I think that out of all the poets I've been reading, he got to me the most.
I felt my hands reaching to touch more than his words. To touch his life, his pain.
I wished to be in Rome, to lean my head on his shoulders and listen to him read those words over and over until there are no verses left anymore. It's unbelievable how many affairs I've been having with dead poets and words /slight giggle/.
I scribbled something poorly, on a whim about him during my walk in a park.
In the periphery
of my nocturnal dome,
in the darkness
of my
ceaseless polychrome
gloam,
my hands roam
seeking
and my beer foams
feeling Ungaretti's
loss, ache, love
make within me
a home.
May 3, 2019
The eagle-eyed will know this about me: I think reviewing poetry is a goddamn waste of time. You can neither convince anyone of its value, that's the reader's job, nor use a review as justification of its value, that's the poet's job.
I hold Ungaretti in high regard. If you like the simple, striking poems of Po Chu-i or Hsie Lingyun or the stark weirdness of Wallace Stevens or Richard Ebehardt, you'll probably like these.
I hold Ungaretti in high regard. If you like the simple, striking poems of Po Chu-i or Hsie Lingyun or the stark weirdness of Wallace Stevens or Richard Ebehardt, you'll probably like these.
November 29, 2016
[…] you can grasp nothing
But crumbs of memory.
*
It is hope that wears out hope.
*
Between this star and that one
Night shuts itself away
In a measureless whirling void,
From this star-like solitude
To that star-like solitude.
But crumbs of memory.
*
It is hope that wears out hope.
*
Between this star and that one
Night shuts itself away
In a measureless whirling void,
From this star-like solitude
To that star-like solitude.
October 19, 2012
I really loved this book! Ungaretti is absolutely amazing and I completely fell in love with his poetry. This book is now dog-eared, marked up, and very much loved. This is a very special book to me and I'm already thinking about rereading it. Beautiful poetry that pulls you in from the very first page and I highly recommend it to all!
November 6, 2011
"Veglia" changed my life.
August 15, 2014
I’ve seen Giuseppe Ungaretti regularly on lists of canonical poets of the modern era, but I didn’t know what to expect from him. I have a passing interest in the hermetic tradition, so my curiosity was piqued when the introductory essay in the volume of his selected works identified him as a founder of the hermetic school in Italy, and I did a little companion research as I read the poetry. Among the hermetic poets, Salvatore Quasimodo is the only one I had previously encountered (and just last year), though I definitely owe time to Montale and Vittorini one of these days. In some ways aligned with the symbolists in France, hermetic poetry is a fascinating and thoroughly modern genre.
The parallel research came to feel more and more helpful as I read Ungaretti because a significant portion of his work – largely indicative of the rest of the hermetic school – is unapologetically cryptic and even solipsistic. As I did with Quasimodo, I ask whether such a poetry (or a literature, for that matter) deserves credence if it is necessarily inaccessible, but the academic position is that Ungaretti and his colleagues achieve a particular density of language in which meaning is secondary to expression. That explanation may seem precious on its face, but it does have merit, especially when one considers Ungaretti’s works as an inflected whole rather than concentrating too hard on individual poems.
It is useful to know, for example, that as the fascists came to power in Italy after World War I, words and images became increasingly politicized, and writers and artists found their works scrutinized for their implicit support for or rejection of the dominant political ideas instead of their aesthetic achievement. Ungaretti’s reaction to this oppressive, groupthinking climate was twofold: he embraced a style that was intentionally oblique and opaque to avoid accusations from the fascists, and he reached for language that encouraged a purely aesthetic appreciation, developing structural and technical forms that encouraged the reader to focus on the construction of words – their phonics, their rhythms, their forms – and place less emphasis on their meaning.
The result in many cases – for Ungaretti and for the other other hermetic poets – is poetry that exists on an enchanted surface, leaving a quixotic void in the middle depths of meaning and narrative, but reaching new depths of epistemology and metaphysics. But that doesn’t mean the reading experience isn’t one of alienation and bewilderment. Concrete and abstract images collide and incomplete analogies pile up. Occasionally lovely turns of phrase are taken up and quickly abandoned. In many cases the poem is over as soon as it begins, lasting only three or four lines, and even in that compressed space, frequently the impression is of listening to the murmurs of a dreaming person.
With many translated reading experiences I have not been too troubled by the compromised experience of not reading in the original language. I admire the work of the translator, and feel as though I have received a significant impression of the original work, even if that impression is compromised. With Ungaretti, though, I’m not so sure, and I while admire Andrew Frisardi for his efforts, this may be a poetry that is largely resistant to translation. I’m sure the meanings of each word and phrase have been faithfully rendered, but keep in mind that literal meaning is not Ungaretti’s primary objective in most cases. I can look across the book to the Italian en face and easily see that the order of phrases, the way they are broken between lines, and the rhythm and confluence of their letters and sounds, are significantly changed when they arrive in English. I can’t help but feel as though much of Ungaretti’s achievement is sequestered in his native tongue.
There are lovely moments that linger and resonate, though. Consider “Outcry” from 1928:
Evening having arrived,
I rested on the monotonous grass
And savored
That perpetual desire,
Dark and flying outcry,
Which the light when it dies holds back.
Or the even briefer “Starry Silence” from 1932:
And the trees and the night
Don’t move anymore
Except from nests.
There is a certain mysticism in these moments that succeeds even in translation. I do feel, though, that the major impression Ungaretti has made on me has not been on the level of individual poems. His selected works as a unity give an impression of a man who has taken the substance of his life – war, an oppressive regime, the formative experience of youthful years in Paris – and used them as a point of departure, a willful but organic loosening of the boundaries of language, in hopes of achieving a loosening of the boundaries of thought. There is apparent a serious delight in rolling words around on the tongue, of shaping phrases for their own sake, and of using language to point in several directions at once without following any of them.
To read Ungaretti, then is to embrace disorientation, trusting that something interesting will follow in its wake. And frequently, something does.
The parallel research came to feel more and more helpful as I read Ungaretti because a significant portion of his work – largely indicative of the rest of the hermetic school – is unapologetically cryptic and even solipsistic. As I did with Quasimodo, I ask whether such a poetry (or a literature, for that matter) deserves credence if it is necessarily inaccessible, but the academic position is that Ungaretti and his colleagues achieve a particular density of language in which meaning is secondary to expression. That explanation may seem precious on its face, but it does have merit, especially when one considers Ungaretti’s works as an inflected whole rather than concentrating too hard on individual poems.
It is useful to know, for example, that as the fascists came to power in Italy after World War I, words and images became increasingly politicized, and writers and artists found their works scrutinized for their implicit support for or rejection of the dominant political ideas instead of their aesthetic achievement. Ungaretti’s reaction to this oppressive, groupthinking climate was twofold: he embraced a style that was intentionally oblique and opaque to avoid accusations from the fascists, and he reached for language that encouraged a purely aesthetic appreciation, developing structural and technical forms that encouraged the reader to focus on the construction of words – their phonics, their rhythms, their forms – and place less emphasis on their meaning.
The result in many cases – for Ungaretti and for the other other hermetic poets – is poetry that exists on an enchanted surface, leaving a quixotic void in the middle depths of meaning and narrative, but reaching new depths of epistemology and metaphysics. But that doesn’t mean the reading experience isn’t one of alienation and bewilderment. Concrete and abstract images collide and incomplete analogies pile up. Occasionally lovely turns of phrase are taken up and quickly abandoned. In many cases the poem is over as soon as it begins, lasting only three or four lines, and even in that compressed space, frequently the impression is of listening to the murmurs of a dreaming person.
With many translated reading experiences I have not been too troubled by the compromised experience of not reading in the original language. I admire the work of the translator, and feel as though I have received a significant impression of the original work, even if that impression is compromised. With Ungaretti, though, I’m not so sure, and I while admire Andrew Frisardi for his efforts, this may be a poetry that is largely resistant to translation. I’m sure the meanings of each word and phrase have been faithfully rendered, but keep in mind that literal meaning is not Ungaretti’s primary objective in most cases. I can look across the book to the Italian en face and easily see that the order of phrases, the way they are broken between lines, and the rhythm and confluence of their letters and sounds, are significantly changed when they arrive in English. I can’t help but feel as though much of Ungaretti’s achievement is sequestered in his native tongue.
There are lovely moments that linger and resonate, though. Consider “Outcry” from 1928:
Evening having arrived,
I rested on the monotonous grass
And savored
That perpetual desire,
Dark and flying outcry,
Which the light when it dies holds back.
Or the even briefer “Starry Silence” from 1932:
And the trees and the night
Don’t move anymore
Except from nests.
There is a certain mysticism in these moments that succeeds even in translation. I do feel, though, that the major impression Ungaretti has made on me has not been on the level of individual poems. His selected works as a unity give an impression of a man who has taken the substance of his life – war, an oppressive regime, the formative experience of youthful years in Paris – and used them as a point of departure, a willful but organic loosening of the boundaries of language, in hopes of achieving a loosening of the boundaries of thought. There is apparent a serious delight in rolling words around on the tongue, of shaping phrases for their own sake, and of using language to point in several directions at once without following any of them.
To read Ungaretti, then is to embrace disorientation, trusting that something interesting will follow in its wake. And frequently, something does.
September 18, 2025
from Monotony
from Beautiful Night
from Last Choruses of the Promised Land
...
from September 12, 1968
And contemplating on God, in Prayer (1928)
Once
I did not know
that even
the sky's
annihilation at evening
is just
an ordinary thing
from Beautiful Night
Now I bite
space
like a baby his mother's breast
Now I am drunk
on vastness
from Last Choruses of the Promised Land
Beginning is always full of promise
Though it torments us
And the experience of every day teaches
That in binding, setting free, or lasting
The days are only drifting smoke.
...
Every year, when I discover that February
Feels intensely and, for modesty's sake, is muddy,
The mimosas erupt, yellow
With tiny blossoms. It's framed in the window
Of that, my former home,
And this one, where I'm spending my old age.
As I approach the great silence,
Will it be a sign that no thing dies
If its appearance keeps coming back?
Or will I finally know that death
Is sovereign over nothing but appearance?
from September 12, 1968
You showed up at the door
In a red dress
To tell me you're fire
That consumes and reignites.
A thorn of your red roses
Pricked me, so that you
Might suck my finger
As if my blood were already yours.
And contemplating on God, in Prayer (1928)
How lovely the world must have been
Before the arrival of man.
Man dug up demons' hoaxes there,
Considered his lust heaven,
His illusion he decreed creative,
He assumed the moment deathless.
Life to him is an enormous weight
As down there the dead bee's wing
To the ant that drags it.
From that which lasts to that which passes,
Lord, unwavering dream,
Renew your covenant.
Oh! soothe these sons and daughters.
Make me feel again
That, man, you climbed to yourself
Through infinite suffering.
Be the measure, be the mystery.
Purifying love,
Make deceiving flesh once more
The ladder of redemption.
I want to hear you say again
That in you souls will be united,
Nullified at last,
And up above will form
Eternal humanity,
You blissful sleep.
September 9, 2008
I prefer Frisardi's translation to Mandelbaum's (which I believe is out of print). Whether more accurate, I don't know, but M's version seems stiff, more literal than F's version. Frisardi includes a few poems M. doesn't, and vice versa.
Ungaretti is a very spare poet most of the time, and a mood of solitude bordering on despair prevails in the earlier poems, from his time in the Italian army in WWI. These are also shorter poems than his later works, which, as they grow longer, seem to lose some of the compressed power of earlier ones.
Ungaretti is a very spare poet most of the time, and a mood of solitude bordering on despair prevails in the earlier poems, from his time in the Italian army in WWI. These are also shorter poems than his later works, which, as they grow longer, seem to lose some of the compressed power of earlier ones.
June 24, 2007
Know that I haven't read a lot of poetry. I was torn between thinking Ungaretti's delicate, mysterious poems were refined and beautiful, and thinking they were affected and needlessly vague. I think they were a little of each. The war poems, and the more personal of the later poems, are the most accessible and I think most successful - the later work has been "classicized" in way that seemed artificial and tedious to me. But much of the imagery, as it floats by, is still distinctive and lovely.
January 19, 2008
Being one of the founding figures of 20th century Italian poetry, Ungaretti's poems briefly offered the feeling those whose life would be well associated with war, death, nothingness and other theme of the 20th century. And this translation is definitely an authorized one
January 15, 2018
Perfect scale intro-oeuvre, I wasnt mortally bored by the intro and neither did I long for more texts to read at once (not counting mattina, of course)... But let me be a soul from the "weightless", I'd rather not judge what is so gracefully impeccable.
June 13, 2007
Monumental
May 31, 2009
The short, haiku-like poems on evenings are evocative and imaginative. I also especially liked "Pieta," with its arresting opening line, and the poems about loss were moving.
May 3, 2014
"Veglia" changed my life.
April 8, 2023
He writes exactly as how my soul feels about the mundane, the nostalgias, the world surrounding me.
January 18, 2022
From L'Allegria (The Joy) (1914 - 1919)...
From Sentimento del Tempo (Sentiment of Time) (1919 - 1935)...
From Il Dolore (The Grief) (1936 - 1946)...
From La Terra Promessa (The Promised Land) (1935 - 1953)...
From Un Grido e Paesaggi (A Cry and Landscapes) (1933 - 1952)...
From Il Taccuino del Vecchio (The Old Man's Notebook) (1952 - 1960)...
From Proverbi (Proverbs) (1966 - 1969)...
From Dialogo (Dialogue) (1966 - 1968)...
From "Early and Uncollected"...
Walk walk
I have refound
the well of love
In the eye
of thousandth-and-one night
I have rested
On deserted gardens
she descended
like a dove
Within the noontime
air that was
a swoon
I gathered for her
oranges and jasmine- Phase, pg.
From Sentimento del Tempo (Sentiment of Time) (1919 - 1935)...
A woman wakes and sings
Wind follows and entrances her
And stretches her upon the earth
And the true dream takes her.
This earth is nude
This woman is warm
This wind is strong
This dream is dead.- Bedouin Song, pg. 109
From Il Dolore (The Grief) (1936 - 1946)...
Stop killing the dead,
Outcry no more, do not outcry
If you would hear them still,
If you would hope not to die.
Their whisper is imperceptible,
They are no louder
Than the growing of the grass,
Happy where man does not pass.- Outcry No More, pg. 141
From La Terra Promessa (The Promised Land) (1935 - 1953)...
Alone I have the night as friend.
With her I can forever pass
Instant to instand, hours not vain
But time to which my pulse beats as
I would, never distracted.
Thus when I feel,
As once again it leaves the shadows,
The hope, immutable
In me, that flame dislodges newly,
Restoring in the silence
To your earthly gestures,
So loved they seemed immortal,
Light.- Secret of the Poet, pg. 165
From Un Grido e Paesaggi (A Cry and Landscapes) (1933 - 1952)...
Poets, poets, we have put on
All the masks;
But one can only be one's self.
Through atrocious impatience,
Within the emptiness that falls, by nature,
Each year, in February,
Set, in these limits, on the calendar:
The day of Candelmas
When, from the shadows, reappears
The feeble trembling of small flames
Above the ardor
Of a bit of virgin wax,
And, after some few weeks, that day
of You are dust and shall return to dust;
Within the emptiness, and out of impatience to leave it,
Each of us (we old men, too,
With our regret;
No one who had not felt it knows
How much illusion,
Living only on regret, can strangle)
Impatient, in the emptiness, is wild,
Wanting, futile,
To reincarnate in some fantasy
That will, in turn, be empty,
And each, dismayed by that,
Time shifting its deceits too quickly,
Outrunning warning.
Dreams are seemly for children only:
They have the grace of candor
That heals all wrongs as it renews
Or changes voices by a breath.
But why is childhood
Suddenly memory?
There is nothing, nothing other on this earth
Than a gleam of truth
And the null of the dust,
Even if, incorrigible madman -
Facing the lightning of mirages
Within himself and in his acts - the living
Seems always to be reaching.- The last stanza of Monologhetto, pg. 171-173
From Il Taccuino del Vecchio (The Old Man's Notebook) (1952 - 1960)...
With no impatience I shall dream,
Bend to the work
That has no end,
And slow by slow above
The arms, reborn,
The helping hands will open,
The eyes, now come again
Into their sockets, will give light,
And suddenly intact,
You will be risen, and again your voice
Will be my guide;
For ever I see you again.- For Ever, pg. 177
From Proverbi (Proverbs) (1966 - 1969)...
Beginning had us singing
And we sing to make an ending- From the sequence Proverbs, pg. 179
From Dialogo (Dialogue) (1966 - 1968)...
1
If you, beloved, should draw near
The shell of darkness
With your clairvoyant ear,
Then you would have to ask yourself:
"Among so many scattered echoes,
Where did the clamour reaching us begin?"
You hear would shudder and fall still
Were you to heed with care
That clamour, born of echoes,
Together with your fear.
Its answer for the questioner:
"That insupportable clamour comes
From the tale of love of a madman;
But now it can only be heard
In the hour of phantoms."
2
If you held your clairvoyant ear
Fast to a shell of darkness,
Then you would ask me, love: "From where
Does this advancing clamour come -
Among enchanting voices - that
So chills the heart with a sudden shudder?"
If you were to consider,
Consider well your fear,
Then you, my anxious one,
Would, suffering, tell
Of a demented passion
That now can only be recalled
In the hour of phantoms.
And you would suffer more
Should that breath of the shell
Seem to your mind an oracle
Announcing your remembering me
Already become a phantom
In a not distant future.- The Shell, pg. 181
From "Early and Uncollected"...
Earth quivers
with pleasure
beneath a sun
whose violence
is gentle- The Sunstruck Dew, pg. 189
August 7, 2019
短句和短章很喜欢，稍微长一点的就看不懂……
July 5, 2023
Chiuso fra cose mortali
(Anche il cielo stellato finirà)
Perché bramo Dio?
(Anche il cielo stellato finirà)
Perché bramo Dio?
July 21, 2023
The poet goes there
then returns to the light with his songs
and scatters them
Of this poetry
there remains to me
that nothing of inexhaustible secrecy.
then returns to the light with his songs
and scatters them
Of this poetry
there remains to me
that nothing of inexhaustible secrecy.
June 16, 2025
The earliest and latest poems were most moving for me; something felt a bit blurred in the poems of the middle years.
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