Journal of Italian Translation

Geoffrey Brock/Guido Gozzano/Giovanni Pascoli
your heart raced, but you trotted gently back;
born beneath pines, between the waves and wind,
you mastered fear so peace might be his end.
The gray mare’s bony muzzle brushed the side
of my sweet mother’s visage as she cried.
O dearest mare, O mare so dapple-gray,
who bore the man who won’t return away—
whose last few words you know, but can’t repeat!
You brought him back, reins trailing at your feet.
The shot in your ears, in your eyes the flame,
along the whispering poplar road, you came.
You bore him through the dying of the day
so we might hear some last word he might say.
The mare’s long head was listening. In her pain,
My mother threw her arms around that mane.
O dearest mare, O mare so dapple-gray,
you bore him home, the man who went away,
who never can come home! Good though you be,
you cannot (others dare not) speak to me.
But oh, there’s one — just one! — thing you must tell:
You saw the killer, yes, you know him well—
who is it? I will say a man’s name now.
Give me some signal. God will show you how.
The horses were no longer champing meal;
asleep, they dreamed the rolling of the wheel.
They did not stamp their hooves upon the hay:
asleep, they dreamed the whiteness of the way.
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