Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

Joseph Tusiani / Giosuè Carducci
Their scent goes far away on sea-salt breezes
and slowly mingles with the sailors’ song,
while a ship calmly within sight of port
lowers her russet sails.
see fair maidens come from the Acropolis
in a long train; fair, spotless veils they wear,
wreaths in their hair and laurel in their hands:
waving their arms, they sing.
Driving his spear deep in his homeland ground,
a man leaps to the shore, in armor bright:
is it Alcaeus coming back from war
to Lesbos and its girls?
RUIT HORA
O long-desired green solitude
far from the sound of men!
Here come with us two friends that heaven sent,
my Lydia—wine and love.
Oh, how, forever young, now Bacchus smiles
in the bright crystal cup!
How in your eyes, O radiant Lydia, Love,
fully unmasked, now triumphs!
Now low, the sun is piercing through the bower,
and its reflected light
shines rosy in my glass and, golden, trembles,
my Lydia, in your hair.
In your black sparkling hair, O my fair Lydia,
a pallid rose is dying,
and a sweet sudden sadness in my heart
tempers the fires of love.
Tell me: why does the sea down there give out
mysterious sounds of grief
beneath the flaming sky? What secrets, Lydia,
among those pine-trees sing?
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