2
less about itself and more about That-whatever it is that makes the universe what it is-if only through valuing people, poems, paintings, sculptures, symphonies and the multitudinous objects of the world for what they are, and not as a means of gratifying human possessive- ness or directing social behaviour. Two Poems by Salvatore Quasimodo Translated by Edwin Morgan Instead of a Madrigal The sunflower leans to the west And already it watches the day Go foundering down and the summer air Grows thick and already it curls the leaves And the dockyard smoke. Into the distance With a dry scurry of clouds and a tearing Of thunderstorms it goes : the sky’s last game. Still, my dear, as for years past, we see here The end of change in the thin trees bound By the Naviglio canals. But it is always Our day and always that disappearing sun Held by the thread of its tender ray. I leave off remembering, I have no more memories; Reminiscence mounts up again from death, But life is without an ending. Every day Is ours. One of them will stop for ever, And you with me, when we think it grows late. Here on the bank of the canal, swinging Our feet like children, let us look Long at the water, at the first branches Caught within its darkening green. See: the man who silently approaches Is hiding no knife in his hands, but a flower, A geranium, not a fear. [Quasi un madrigale] To the New Moonl In the beginning God created the sky And the earth, and then placed lights in the sky At the appointed time, and at last he lay At rest, having reached the seventh day. 174

Two Poems by SALVATORE Quasimodo

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Two Poems by SALVATORE Quasimodo

less about itself and more about That-whatever it is that makes the universe what it is-if only through valuing people, poems, paintings, sculptures, symphonies and the multitudinous objects of the world for what they are, and not as a means of gratifying human possessive- ness or directing social behaviour.

Two Poems by Salvatore Quasimodo Translated by Edwin Morgan

Instead of a Madrigal The sunflower leans to the west And already it watches the day Go foundering down and the summer air Grows thick and already it curls the leaves And the dockyard smoke. Into the distance With a dry scurry of clouds and a tearing Of thunderstorms it goes : the sky’s last game. Still, my dear, as for years past, we see here The end of change in the thin trees bound By the Naviglio canals. But it is always Our day and always that disappearing sun Held by the thread of its tender ray.

I leave off remembering, I have no more memories; Reminiscence mounts up again from death, But life is without an ending. Every day Is ours. One of them will stop for ever, And you with me, when we think it grows late. Here on the bank of the canal, swinging Our feet like children, let us look Long at the water, at the first branches Caught within its darkening green. See: the man who silently approaches Is hiding no knife in his hands, but a flower, A geranium, not a fear.

[Quasi un madrigale]

To the New Moonl In the beginning God created the sky And the earth, and then placed lights in the sky At the appointed time, and at last he lay At rest, having reached the seventh day.

174

Page 2: Two Poems by SALVATORE Quasimodo

After a few thousand million years Man, made in his image and resemblance, Without taking rest, and with his secular Intelligence, And without fear, placed in the quiet sky Of one October night Other lights the equal of those of old That have rolled and rolled From the beginning of the world. Amen.

’On the launching of the first Russian Sputnik, October, 1957.

[Alla nuova luna] Salvatore Quasimodo, born in Sicily in 1901, and now living in Milan, is a

leading Italian lyric poet; he is known also as a translator of Greek and Latin poetry, and of Shakespeare. Although his own output has never been large, he is interesting today as one of the modern poets (another example is Pasternak) whose work has undergone a development since the Second World War in the direction of greater clarity and humanity. His speech ‘The Poet and the Poli- tician’, made when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959, is a notable tussle with the problems the poet faces in modern society.

See the special issue of ADAM devoted to his work (Nos. 280-281, 1960).

‘Instead of a Madrigal’ comes from the volume La vita non d sogno, 1949. ‘To the New Moon’ is from La terra impareggiabile, 1958.

Somerset Maugham’s famous studies of great novels and their authors are being serialised in full in Books and Bookmen Long critical essays on

BALZAC Le Pdre Goriot FLAUBERT Madame Bovory

DOSTOEVSKY The Brothers Karamazov STENDHAL Le Rouge et le Noir

ToLsmY War and Peace JANE AUSTEN Pride and Prejudice EMILY BRONTE Wuthering Heights

CHARLES DICKENS David Copperfield HENRY FIELDING Tom Jones

HERMAN MELVILLE hloby Dick

Ten monthly instalments beginning in the May

Books and Bookmen Give your newsagent a firm order fox regular monthly delivery 2s. 6d. SUBSCRIPTIONS: 33s. per annum (16s. 6d. six months) to any address

H A N S O M B O O K S * 7 H O B A R T P L A C E ‘ E A T O N S Q U A R E . L O N D O N , S.W.1.

175