Eugenio Montale
‘The sweet years that with long refractions…’
The sweet years that with long refractions
illuminate our latest,
submerged in an overflowing stream;
lost years when adventure
was brushwood crowned
by whirling flights around a field,
or the liquid darting of a tarantula
on a flaking wall;
sweet years that I make out like a faint light
through fog – now that they burn around me
without flame, unceasing
anguish that more and more a north wind re-kindles
thoughts and faces I no longer know,
and meet bewildered;
years which she who sees but doesn’t understand
will follow in the nearing coffin
drawn by the vortex that swirls lives
and drags them down
into darkness.
illuminate our latest,
submerged in an overflowing stream;
lost years when adventure
was brushwood crowned
by whirling flights around a field,
or the liquid darting of a tarantula
on a flaking wall;
sweet years that I make out like a faint light
through fog – now that they burn around me
without flame, unceasing
anguish that more and more a north wind re-kindles
thoughts and faces I no longer know,
and meet bewildered;
years which she who sees but doesn’t understand
will follow in the nearing coffin
drawn by the vortex that swirls lives
and drags them down
into darkness.
Translated by Simon CarnellErica Segre
Page(s) 93
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