1909 Publishes the first edition of New Little Poems, thirty-three poems that further develop the familial themes of Little Poems, and the first edition of Le canzoni di re Enzio [Canzoni of King Enzo], inspired by the medieval history of Bologna. This title belongs to Pascoli’s project of promoting national Italian history, conceived during his years at Pisa.
1910 Publishes the fifth edition of Canti of Castelvecchio to include the eight-poem appendix “Autumn Diary,” dedicated to Maria and set in scenes around San Mauro, Castelvecchio, and Bologna. The director of the hospital in Lucca records liver problems in the poet’s medical report. Pascoli begins to complain about his health in letters.
1911 Publishes his new collection, Poemi italici [Italian Poems], in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Unification of Italy, and the ninth edition of Myricae. Anonymously enters his Latin poem “Hymnus in Romam” [“Hymn to Rome”] in a Rome-based competition on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Unification of Italy. No first prize is awarded, prompting D’Annunzio to wonder (in a newspaper article) how an authoritative committee could assign only second prize to “the greatest Latin poet in the world to be born since the time of Augustus.”
1912 January 26, A local doctor and friend notes that Pascoli has cirrhosis and stomach cancer that has spread to the liver. The diagnosis is corroborated by other doctors. February 4, News of Pascoli’s illness is published in local and national newspapers, which begin updating the public regularly. February 17, Pascoli’s health deteriorates rapidly and he is transferred from Castelvecchio to Bologna. Neighboring farmers work through the night to regrade a steep road so the poet can arrive at the nearest train station in an automobile rather than in the less comfortable carriage. In a specially fitted railway car provided by local authorities, Pascoli arrives in Bologna, where he is greeted by city officials, friends, and students. April 6, Pascoli dies, leaving everything to Maria. Eulogizing him in the Giornale d’Italia, D’Annunzio declares Pascoli “the greatest and most Italian poet since Petrarch,” adding that his stature “will be recognized once Italy has modernized its poetic values of old.” April 9, Pascoli’s funeral is held in Bologna and crowded with politicians, academics, and common people. Both San Mauro in Romagna and Barga in Tuscany claim the body for burial, which is transported immediately to Barga after the ceremony in Bologna. Maria has a tomb built for her brother in the chapel of their Castelvecchio home, where she dedicates herself to the preservation of the poet’s papers and his memory for the next forty-one years. October 6, Pascoli’s body is transferred from temporary burial in the Barga cemetery to the Castelvecchio chapel. A friend writes, “At 2pm, the funerary procession started, and it began to rain lightly. But no one cared about getting wet. They really loved him. Houses had draped black from the windows, and storefronts posted signs of Official Mourning . . . Farmers had come from all over the county, and the further we went, the more of them we found. Approaching Castelvecchio, they were so many that they flanked the road on both sides. And they all stood somberly; they had not come just to see their poet but to wish him farewell.”
from Myricae
Patria
Sogno d’un dì d’estate.
Quanto scampanellare
tremulo di cicale!
Stridule pel filare
moveva il maestrale
le foglie accartocciate.
Scendea tra gli olmi il sole
in fascie polverose:
erano in ciel due sole
nuvole, tenui, róse:
due bianche spennellate
in tutto il ciel turchino.
Siepi di melograno,
fratte di tamerice,
il palpito lontano
d’una trebbïatrice,
l’angelus argentino . . .
dov’ero? Le campane
mi dissero dov’ero,
piangendo, mentre un cane
latrava al forestiero,
che andava a capo chino.
Birthplace
Dream of a summer day.
Limitless cicadas
trilled and quivered.
Wind from the north
whipped crumpled leaves
through a line of trees.
Sun fell between elms
in strips of dust:
From the sky, two clouds
hung threadbare:
white brushed
across wide blue air.
Tamarisk shrubs,
pomegranate trees, the far
throb of a threshing machine
and the silvery swell
of the evening call to prayer . . .
Where was I? The bell
for the prayer said where,
in tears, while a dog
bayed at a stranger
who walked by, head bowed.
Alba festiva
Che hanno le campane,
che squillano vicine,
che ronzano lontane?
È un inno senza fine,
or d’oro, ora d’argento,
nell’ombre mattutine.
Con un dondolìo lento
implori, o voce d’oro,
nel cielo sonnolento.
Tra il cantico sonoro
il tuo tintinno squilla
voce argentina—Adoro,
adoro—Dilla, dilla,
la nota d’oro—L’onda
pende dal ciel, tranquilla.
Ma voce più profonda
sotto l’amor rimbomba,
par che al desìo risponda:
la voce della tomba.
Sunday Dawn
What brings those bells
that ring somewhere near
and rumble, farther off?
A song without end,
silver, then gold,
in the day’s first shadows.
Swinging slow,
your golden voice
beseeches the sleepy sky.
In the echoing hymn
your silver trills–
I love, I love—Oh, sing,
sing, you strain
of gold—wave that swings
from the sky above.
But, beneath the love,
the deeper voice
of a grave responds—as if
to the song’s true wish.
Allora
Allora . . . in un tempo assai lunge
felice fui molto; non ora:
ma quanta dolcezza mi giunge
da tanta dolcezza d’allora!
Quell’anno! per anni che poi
fuggirono, che fuggiranno,
non puoi, mio pensiero, non puoi,
portare con te, che quell’anno!
Un giorno fu quello, ch’è senza
compagno, ch’è senza ritorno;
la vita fu vana parvenza
sì prima sì dopo quel giorno!
Un punto! . . . così passeggero,
che in vero passò non raggiunto;
ma bello così, che molto ero
felice, felice, quel punto!
Back Then
Back then . . . I was happy, so happy.
That’s gone. But still,
such sweetness reaches me here
from the infinite sweetness back then.
That year. All the years now done,
all the years to come, and you can’t,
my thoughts, you can’t bring
any year but that one.
That year was a day, and a day
without match, without future or past:
life before and life after
is only illusion, or shade.
An instant . . . So fast, it left
unarrived, but an instant
so real, so fine, so alive,
I was happy, happy, back then.
Fides
Quando brillava il vespero vermiglio,
e il cipresso pareva oro, oro fino,
la madre disse al piccoletto figlio:
Così fatto è lassù tut
to un giardino.
Il bimbo dorme, e sogna i rami d’oro,
gli alberi d’oro, le foreste d’oro;
mentre il cipresso nella notte nera
scagliasi al vento, piange alla bufera.
Fides
When twilight glowed a rare, brilliant red
and the cypress seemed gold, a gold dusting,
the mother explained to her very small son
that, up there, it’s nothing but gardens.
Her son is asleep and dreams of gold
branches, trees made of gold, golden forests.
Meanwhile, outside, in the blackness of night,
the cypress weeps rain, and wars with the wind.
I puffini dell’Adriatico
Tra cielo e mare (un rigo di carmino
recide intorno l’acque marezzate)
parlano. È un’alba cerula d’estate:
non una randa in tutto quel turchino.
Pur voci reca il soffio del garbino
con ozïose e tremule risate.
Sono i puffini: su le mute ondate
pende quel chiacchiericcio mattutino.
Sembra un vociare, per la calma, fioco,
di marinai, ch’ad ora ad ora giunga
tra ’l fievole sciacquìo della risacca;
quando, stagliate dentro l’oro e il fuoco,
le paranzelle in una riga lunga
dondolano sul mar liscio di lacca.
Puffins of the Adriatic
They talk between the sky and sea
(a streak of pink on dappled swells).
The cerulean dawn of summer:
not a sail on the turquoise screen.
But streams of southwest wind bring in
the laughing, idle voices: puffins.
Their lazy morning chatter rides
on crests of quiet waves.
In the calm it seems like sailors’ slang
that now and again drifts in to shore
on the slight swish of the undertow
while framed against the gold and flame,
a line of little trawlers sways
on the slickly varnished sea.
from L’ultima passeggiata
Arano
Al campo, dove roggio nel filare
qualche pampano brilla, e dalle fratte
sembra la nebbia mattinal fumare,
arano: a lente grida, uno le lente
vacche spinge; altri semina; un ribatte
le porche con sua marra pazïente;
chè il passero saputo in cor già gode,
e il tutto spia dai rami irti del moro;
e il pettirosso: nelle siepi s’ode
il suo sottil tintinno come d’oro.
Galline
Al cader delle foglie, alla massaia
non piange il vecchio cor, come a noi grami:
chè d’arguti galletti ha piena l’aia;
e spessi nella pace del mattino
delle utili galline ode i richiami:
zeppo, il granaio; il vin canta nel tino.
Cantano a sera intorno a lei stornelli
le fiorenti ragazze occhi pensosi,
mentre il granturco sfogliano, e i monelli
ruzzano nei cartocci strepitosi.
from The Last Walk
They’re Plowing
In the field, where vines gleam
the color of rust, and morning fog
rises like smoke from the brush,
folks are plowing: one prods slow cows
with slow cries; others seed; with a hoe’s
patient blade one covers the furrow;
for the sly sparrow delights in the seeds
it sees from its branch on a mulberry tree;
the red robin, too—from bushes, its jingling
falls like the chime of gold coins.
Hens
Unlike us fools, the farmer’s wife
won’t weep a tear for falling leaves:
shrewd roosters guard her henhouse;
And in the peace of dawn, she hears
the calls of helpful hens: her granary
is packed; wine sings inside the vat.
At dusk the girls all gather near
to shuck the corn while singing rounds,
and impish boys jump laughing
into heaps of crackling husks.
Lavandare
Nel campo mezzo grigio e mezzo nero
resta un aratro senza buoi che pare
dimenticato, tra il vapor leggero.
E cadenzato dalla gora viene
lo sciabordare delle lavandare
con tonfi spessi e lunghe cantilene:
Il vento soffia e nevica la frasca,
e tu non torni ancora al tuo paese!
quando partisti, come son rimasta!
come l’aratro in mezzo alla maggese.
La via ferrata
Tra gli argini su cui mucche tranquilla-
mente pascono, bruna si difila
la via ferrata che lontano brilla;
e nel cielo di perla dritti, uguali,
con loro trama delle aeree fila
digradano in fuggente ordine i pali.
Qual di gemiti e d’ululi rombando
cresce e dilegua femminil lamento?
I fili di metallo a quando a quando
squillano, immensa arpa sonora, al vento.
Laundresses
A plow without oxen or strap
sits in a field half gray, half black.
In the mist, it looks forgotten.
And up from the pond, the sound
of laundresses, beating wet cloth
against stone as they sing:
Strong winds rain the petals down
and still you won’t come home.
You left! And left me alone—
a plow on untilled ground.
Track
Past riverbanks where cattle
calmly graze, the track unfurls
a dusky line that shines a long
way off. And neatly drawing back,
the poles recede in rows to overlap
their wires through a sky of pearl:
What woman’s howl grows louder,
then fades to troubled sighing?
From time to time those wires ring,
a giant harp that sings in the wind.
Festa lontana
Un piccolo infinito scampanìo
ne ronza e vibra, come d’una festa
assai lontana, dietro un vel d’oblìo.
Là, quando ondando vanno le campane,
scoprono i vecchi per la via la testa
bianca, e lo sguardo al suol fisso rimane.
Ma tondi gli occhi sgranano i bimbetti,
cui trema intorno il loro ciel sereno.
Strillano al crepitar de’ mortaretti.
Mamma li stringe all’odorato seno.
Quel giorno
Dopo rissosi cinguettìi nell’aria,
le rondini lasciato hanno i veroni
della Cura fra gli olmi solitaria.
Quanti quel roseo campanil bisbigli
udì, quel giorno, o strilli di rondoni
impazïenti a gl’inquïeti figli!
Or nel silenzio del meriggio urtare
là dentro odo una seggiola, una gonna
frusciar d’un tratto: alla finestra appare
curïoso un gentil viso di donna.
Faraway Festival
A little endless peal swells, reverberates,
as if the sound’s escaping from a festival
held far away, behind oblivion.
There, when bells come lilting down,
the old folks by the road uncover
thin white hair, and keep their gazes low.
But wide-eyed children watch the clear sky
tremble all around them. They shriek
to hear the firecrackers crack.
Mothers lean in close, pull them back.
That Day
After so much
flap and brawl
the swallows left the ledges
of the church between the elms.
The rosy belfry must have heard
a thousand murmurings that day,
a surge of urgent swallows to their nests.
Now, in the quiet of the afternoon,
I hear a chair scrape wood indoors, the rustle
of a skirt, abrupt: a woman’s gentle,
puzzled face appears beside the window.
Già dalla mattina
Acqua, rimbomba; dondola, cassetta;
gira, coperchio, intorno la bronzina;
versa, tramoggia, il gran dalla bocchetta;
spolvero, svola. Nero da una fratta
l’asino attende già dalla mattina
presso la risonante cateratta.
Le orecchie scrolla e volgesi a guardare
chè tardi, tra finire, andar bel bello,
intridere, spianare ed infornare,
sul desco fumerai, pan di cruschello.
Carrettiere
O carrettiere che dai neri monti
vieni tranquillo, e fosti nella notte
sotto ardue rupi, sopra aerei ponti;
che mai diceva il querulo aquilone
che muggìa nelle forre e fra le grotte?
Ma tu dormivi sopra il tuo carbone.
A mano a mano lungo lo stradale
venìa fischiando un soffio di procella:
Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli Page 4
