The Ruling Thought
Most sweet, most powerful,
Controller of my inmost soul;
The terrible, yet precious gift
Of heaven, companion kind
Of all my days of misery,
O thought, that ever dost recur to me;
Of thy mysterious power
Who speaketh not? Who hath not felt
Its subtle influence?
Yet, when one is by feeling deep impelled
Its secret joys and sorrows to unfold,
The theme seems ever new however old.
How isolated is my mind,
Since thou in it hast come to dwell!
As by some magic spell,
My other thoughts have all,
Like lightning, disappeared;
And thou, alone, like some huge tower,
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Night Song Of A Wandering Shepherd In Asia
What doest thou in heaven, O moon?
Say, silent moon, what doest thou?
Thou risest in the evening; thoughtfully
Thou wanderest o'er the plain,
Then sinkest to thy rest again.
And art thou never satisfied
With going o'er and o'er the selfsame ways?
Art never wearied? Dost thou still
Upon these valleys love to gaze?
How much thy life is like
The shepherd's life, forlorn!
He rises in the early dawn,
He moves his flock along the plain;
The selfsame flocks, and streams, and herbs
He sees again;
Then drops to rest, the day's work o'er;
And hopes for nothing more.
Tell me, O moon, what signifies his life
To him, thy life to thee? Say, whither tend
My weary, short-lived pilgrimage,
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Hymn To The Patriarchs
OR OF THE BEGINNINGS OF THE HUMAN RACE.
Illustrious fathers of the human race,
Of you, the song of your afflicted sons
Will chant the praise; of you, more dear, by far,
Unto the Great Disposer of the stars,
Who were not born to wretchedness, like ours.
Immedicable woes, a life of tears,
The silent tomb, eternal night, to find
More sweet, by far, than the ethereal light,
These things were not by heaven's gracious law
Imposed on you. If ancient legends speak
Of sins of yours, that brought calamity
Upon the human race, and fell disease,
Alas, the sins more terrible, by far,
Committed by your children, and their souls
More restless, and with mad ambition fixed,
Against them roused the wrath of angry gods,
The hand of all-sustaining Nature armed,
By them so long neglected and despised.
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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To Italy (1818)
My country, I the walls, the arches see,
The columns, statues, and the towers
Deserted, of our ancestors;
But, ah, the glory I do not behold,
The laurel and the sword, that graced
Our sires of old.
Now, all unarmed, a naked brow,
A naked breast dost thou display.
Ah, me, how many wounds, what stains of blood!
Oh, what a sight art thou,
Most beautiful of women! I
To heaven cry aloud, and to the world:
'Who hath reduced her to this pass?
Say, say!' And worst of all, alas,
See, both her arms in chains are bound!
With hair dishevelled, and without a veil
She sits, disconsolate, upon the ground,
And hides her face between her knees,
As she bewails her miseries.
Oh, weep, my Italy, for thou hast cause;
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Consalvo
Approaching now the end of his abode
On earth, Consalvo lay; complaining once,
Of his hard fate, but now quite reconciled,
When, in the midst of his fifth lustre, o'er
His head oblivion, so longed-for, hung.
As for some time, so, on his dying day,
He lay, abandoned by his dearest friends:
For in the world, few friends to _him_ will cling,
Who shows that he is weary of the world.
Yet _she_ was at his side, by pity led,
In his lone wretchedness to comfort him,
Who was alone and ever in his thought;
Elvira, for her loveliness renowned;
And knowing well her power; that a look,
A single sweet and gracious word from _her_,
A thousand-fold repeated in the heart,
Devoted, of her hapless lover, still
His consolation and support had been,
Although no word of love had she from him
E'er heard. For ever in his soul the power
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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To Count Carlo Pepoli
This wearisome and this distressing sleep
That we call life, O how dost thou support,
My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thou
Thy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,
Agreeable or sad, dost thou invest
The idleness thy ancestors bequeathed
To thee, a dull and heavy heritage?
All life, indeed, in every walk of life,
Is idleness, if we may give that name
To every work achieved, or effort made,
That has no worthy aim in view, or fails
That aim to reach. And if you idle call
The busy crew, that daily we behold,
From tranquil morn unto the dewy eve,
Behind the plough, or tending plants and flocks,
Because they live simply to keep alive,
And life is worthless for itself alone,
The honest truth you speak. His nights and days
The pilot spends in idleness; the toil
And sweat in workshops are but idleness;
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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To Angelo Mai,
ON HIS DISCOVERY OF THE LOST BOOKS OF CICERO,
'DE REPUBLICA.'
Italian bold, why wilt thou never cease
The fathers from their tombs to summon forth?
Why bring them, with this dead age to converse,
That stifled is by enemies and by sloth?
And why dost thou, voice of our ancestors,
That hast so long been mute,
Resound so loud and frequent in our ears?
Why all these grand discoveries?
As in a flash the fruitful pages come,
What hath this wretched age deserved,
That dusty cloisters have for it reserved
These hidden treasures of the wise and brave?
Illustrious man, with what strange power
Does Fate thy ardent zeal befriend?
Or does Fate vainly with man's will contend?
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Recollections
Ye dear stars of the Bear, I did not think
I should again be turning, as I used,
To see you over father's garden shine,
And from the windows talk with you again
Of this old house, where as a child I dwelt,
And where I saw the end of all my joys.
What charming images, what fables, once,
The sight of you created in my thought,
And of the lights that bear you company!
Silent upon the verdant clod I sat,
My evening thus consuming, as I gazed
Upon the heavens, and listened to the chant
Of frogs that in the distant marshes croaked;
While o'er the hedges, ditches, fire-flies roamed,
And the green avenues and cypresses
In yonder grove were murmuring to the wind;
While in the house were heard, at intervals,
The voices of the servants at their work.
What thoughts immense in me the sight inspired
Of that far sea, and of the mountains blue,
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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On Dante's Monument, 1818
Though all the nations now
Peace gathers under her white wings,
The minds of Italy will ne'er be free
From the restraints of their old lethargy,
Till our ill-fated land cling fast
Unto the glorious memories of the Past.
Oh, lay it to thy heart, my Italy,
Fit honor to thy dead to pay;
For, ah, their like walk not thy streets to-day!
Nor is there one whom thou canst reverence!
Turn, turn, my country, and behold
That noble band of heroes old,
And weep, and on thyself thy anger vent,
For without anger, grief is impotent:
Oh, turn, and rouse thyself for shame,
Blush at the thought of sires so great,
Of children so degenerate!
Alien in mien, in genius, and in speech,
The eager guest from far
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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The Ginestra,
OR THE FLOWER OF THE WILDERNESS.
Here, on the arid ridge
Of dead Vesuvius,
Exterminator terrible,
That by no other tree or flower is cheered,
Thou scatterest thy lonely leaves around,
O fragrant flower,
With desert wastes content. Thy graceful stems
I in the solitary paths have found,
The city that surround,
That once was mistress of the world;
And of her fallen power,
They seemed with silent eloquence to speak
Unto the thoughtful wanderer.
And now again I see thee on this soil,
Of wretched, world-abandoned spots the friend,
Of ruined fortunes the companion, still.
These fields with barren ashes strown,
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poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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