----------------------------------
Graceful moon, I remember
That – it’s been almost a year now – I would come,
Filled with anguish, to this hill to gaze at you:
And you were leaning over that forest
As you are doing now, lighting up all of it.
Yet your face appeared nebulous and trembling
To my lights, due to the tears wetting
My eyelashes, for troubled
Was my life: as it still is, nor will it change,
My dear moon. Yet that time’s memory
Helps me, and so does the recalling
Of my pain. Oh! How grateful does
The remembrance of past things occur
In the years of youth, when the course of
Hope is still long, whereas short is the course of memory,
Although the things remembered are painful, and the trouble continues!
A translation of Giacomo Leopardi’s Alla luna
(by Bruno Gullì)
Graceful moon, I remember
That – it’s been almost a year now – I would come,
Filled with anguish, to this hill to gaze at you:
And you were leaning over that forest
As you are doing now, lighting up all of it.
Yet your face appeared nebulous and trembling
To my lights, due to the tears wetting
My eyelashes, for troubled
Was my life: as it still is, nor will it change,
My dear moon. Yet that time’s memory
Helps me, and so does the recalling
Of my pain. Oh! How grateful does
The remembrance of past things occur
In the years of youth, when the course of
Hope is still long, whereas short is the course of memory,
Although the things remembered are painful, and the trouble continues!
A translation of Giacomo Leopardi’s Alla luna
(by Bruno Gullì)
