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

Joseph Tusiani / Giosuè Carducci
“Funere Mersit acerbo”
Oh, you, who, near our father, now are sleeping
over the Tuscan hill once more in bloom,
have you, through the green grasses of your tomb,
not heard a while ago a gentle weeping?
It is my little child, on your lone door
now knocks: he who your life seemed to renew,
bearing your great and sacred name, he, too,
now flees that life to you so sad a war.
But he through painted flower-beds was playing,
and happy dreams were smiling on his fun,
when shadows wrapped him round and, cold and preying,
pushed him upon your shore. O my dear brother,
welcome to your black home my little one,
who to this light looks back and calls his mother.
Ancient Weeping
The tree you tried to reach
with your sweet, tiny hand—
the green pomegranate and
its blossoms, fair arid bright—
in this sad, silent garden
is green again and tall,
and June restores it all
with happy warmth and light.
You, flower of my plant
so dried and struck with doom,
you, last and only bloom
of this my useless day,
are in the frozen ground,
are in the darkened earth—
deaf to this sunlit mirth,
deaf to my loving lay
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