Poems by Count Giacomo Leopardi

All Poems Original Poems Translations

1 2 3 4 › »

Guerra Dei Topi E Delle Rane

CANTO PRIMO

Sul cominciar del mio novello canto,

Voi che tenete l'eliconie cime

Prego, vergini Dee, concilio santo,

Che 'l mio stil conduciate e le mie rime:

Di topi e rane i casi acerbi e l'ire,

Segno insolito a i carmi, io prendo a dire.

La cetra ho in man, le carte in grembo: or date

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

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,

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

To His Sister Paolina,

ON HER APPROACHING MARRIAGE.

Since now thou art about to leave

Thy father's quiet house,

And all the phantoms and illusions dear,

That heaven-born fancies round it weave,

And to this lonely region lend their charm,

Unto the dust and noise of life condemned,

By destiny, soon wilt thou learn to see

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

Chorus of the Dead

And all returns to Thee, alone eternal,

And all Thee returning.

Oh Death, in Thy vast shadow,

Simple and bare we languish,

Not happy, but from the anguish

Of life at last set free. The night profoundly

Falls on the shaken spirit,

And dark in dark confuses;

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

To The Beloved

Beauty beloved, who hast my heart inspired,

Seen from afar, or with thy face concealed,

Save, when in visions of the night revealed,

Or seen in daydreams bright,

When all the fields are filled with light,

And Nature's smile is sweet,

Say, hast thou blessed

Some golden age of innocence,

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

To The Spring

OR OF THE FABLES OF THE ANCIENTS.

Now that the sun the faded charms

Of heaven again restores,

And gentle zephyr the sick air revives,

And the dark shadows of the clouds

Are put to flight,

And birds their naked breasts confide

Unto the wind, and the soft light,

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

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,

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

To Sylvia

O Sylvia, dost thou remember still

That period of thy mortal life,

When beauty so bewildering

Shone in thy laughing, glancing eyes,

As thou, so merry, yet so wise,

Youth's threshold then wast entering?

How did the quiet rooms,

And all the paths around,

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

To The Moon

O lovely moon, how well do I recall

The time,--'tis just a year--when up this hill

I came, in my distress, to gaze at thee:

And thou suspended wast o'er yonder grove,

As now thou art, which thou with light dost fill.

But stained with mist, and tremulous, appeared

Thy countenance to me, because my eyes

Were filled with tears, that could not be suppressed;

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

Fragment II

The light of day was fading in the west,

The smoke no more from village chimneys curled,

Nor voice of man, nor bark of dog was heard;

When she, obedient to Love's rendezvous,

Had reached the middle of a plain, than which

No other more bewitching could be found.

The moon on every side her lustre shed,

And all in robes of silver light arrayed

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

Fragment I

I round the threshold wandering here,

Vainly the tempest and the rain invoke,

That they may keep my lady prisoner.

And yet the wind was howling in the woods,

The roving thunder bellowing in the clouds,

Before the dawn had risen in the sky.

O ye dear clouds! O heaven! O earth! O trees!

My lady goes! Have mercy, if on earth

by Count Giacomo Leopardi

To A Victor In A Game Of Pallone

The face of glory and her pleasant voice,

O fortunate youth, now recognize,

And how much nobler than effeminate sloth

Are manhood's tested energies.

Take heed, O generous champion, take heed,

If thou thy name by worthy thought or deed,

From Time's all-sweeping current couldst redeem;

Take heed, and lift thy heart to high desires!

by Count Giacomo Leopardi