Written by
Giacomo Leopardi |
Now will you rest forever,
My tired heart.
Dead is the last
deception,
That I thought eternal.
Dead.
Well I
feel
In us the sweet illusions,
Nothing but ash, desire burned out.
Rest forever.
You have
Trembled enough.
Nothing is worth
Thy beats, nor does the earth
deserve
Thy sighs.
Bitter and dull
Is life, there is nought else.
The
world is clay.
Rest now.
Despair
For the last time.
To our kind, Fate
Gives but death.
Now despise
Yourself, nature, the sinister
Power that secretly commands our
common ruin,
And the infinite vanity of
everything.
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Written by
Giacomo Leopardi |
Oh gracious moon, now as the year turns,
I remember how, heavy with sorrow,
I climbed this hill to gaze on you,
And then as now you hung above those trees
Illuminating all.
But to my eyes
Your face seemed clouded, temulous
From the tears that rose beneath my lids,
So painful was my life: and is, my
Dearest moon; its tenor does not change.
And yet, memory and numbering the epochs
Of my grief is pleasing to me.
How welcome
In that youthful time -when hope's span is long,
And memory short -is the remembrance even of
Past sad things whose pain endures.
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Written by
Giacomo Leopardi |
These solitary hills have always been dear to me.
Seated here, this sweet hedge, which blocks the distant horizon opening inner silences and interminable distances.
I plunge in thought to where my heart, frightened, pulls back.
Like the wind which I hear tossing the trembling plants which surround me, a voice from the inner depths of spirit shakes the certitudes of thought.
Eternity breaks through time, past and present intermingle in her image.
In the inner shadows I lose myself,
drowning in the sea-depths of timeless love.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET LIV.
Mai non vedranno le mie luci asciutte.
TO THE MEMORY OF GIACOMO COLONNA, WHO DIED BEFORE PETRARCH COULD REPLY TO A LETTER OF HIS.
Ne'er shall I see again with eyes unwet,
Or with the sure powers of a tranquil mind,
Those characters where Love so brightly shined,
And his own hand affection seem'd to set;
Spirit! amid earth's strifes unconquer'd yet,
Breathing such sweets from heaven which now has shrined,
As once more to my wandering verse has join'd
The style which Death had led me to forget.
Another work, than my young leaves more bright,
I thought to show: what envying evil star
Snatch'd thee, my noble treasure, thus from me?
So soon who hides thee from my fond heart's sight,
And from thy praise my loving tongue would bar?
My soul has rest, sweet sigh! alone in thee.
Macgregor.
Oh! ne'er shall I behold with tearless eye
Or tranquil soul those characters of thine,
In which affection doth so brightly shine,
And charity's own hand I can descry!
[Pg 277]Blest soul! that could this earthly strife defy,
Thy sweets instilling from thy home divine,
Thou wakest in me the tone which once was mine,
To sing my rhymes Death's power did long deny.
With these, my brow's young leaves, I fondly dream'd
Another work than this had greeted thee:
What iron planet envied thus our love?
My treasure! veil'd ere age had darkly gleam'd;
Thou—whom my song records—my heart doth see;
Thou wakest my sigh, and sighing, rest I prove.
Wollaston.
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