Best of Giuseppe Ungaretti

I am a creature

Like this stone

of San Michele

so cold,

so harsh,

dry

and stubborn

so perfect

without soul.

Like this stone

it's my cry

that remains unseen

The death

is paid

by living.

Damnation

Prisoner between the perishing 

(Even the starry sky will have an end) 

Why do I long for God?

Vanity

All at once

a boundless stupefaction 

has ascended

above the ruins.

And the man

bent

over the water

he finds himself

a shadow.

Waved

and slowly

broken.

March Night 

Indecent moon, turn to your unexpected light,

the shadow where Apollo sleeps

Has a questionable clarity.

Again, the dreaming opens its ravishing eyes,

It illuminates from a top window.

Wings of desire

When they will feel the earth

They will embody pain.

garetti English

Of August

Greedy mourning nibbling at the living,

Wide dull sea,

Without loneliness,

Repressed cries in liturgy kneeling,

Summer,

Shaded fleshless stones within hollows.

Awaked  ashes of the amphitheaters…

Which Erebus?

I howl.

Every gray

From the abandoned snake  skin

To the craven mole

Every  gray is wasted on cathedrals ...

Like a yellow prow

From star to star, the sun bids us farewell

And frowns under  the celestial vault...

Like a tired forehead

It came up again at night

In the digging of a palm.

Day after day (11)

The swallow passes by and with her the summer,

And I say, I myself will pass…

But stay with me, harrowing love,

When I become a lessened haze

That came back from hell

With just a few silences.

English translation by David Lapadat from romanian -  Giuseppe Ungaretti - O viata de om | Traducere din limba italiana - Nicoleta Dabija | Editura Paralela 45 | 2018