Veglia, by Giuseppe Ungaretti

vigil1-low

Veglia

Un’intera nottata
Buttato vicino
A un compagno
Massacrato
Con la sua bocca
Digrignata
Volta al plenilunio
Con la congestione
Delle sue mani
Penetrata
Nel mio silenzio
Ho scritto
Lettere piene d’amore

Non sono mai stato
Tanto
Attaccato alla vita

Cima Quattro, il 23 dicembre 1915

Vigil

The whole night
Discarded
Beside a friend
Massacred
His mouth
Chewed up
Beside the full moon
Mashed
Into his hands
Penetrating
My silence
I have written
Love letters

I’d never been
Much
Attached to life

Peak Four, December 23, 1915

translated by Joseph M. Gerace

 

Other People’s Poetry: Guiseppe Ungaretti’s "End of Chronos" translated by Andrew Frisardi

End of Chronos (1915)
by Guiseppe Ungaretti 

The strange and frightened moment
Wanders in the lap
Of the firmament.

A lilac-tinted smudge
Crowns the mountains,

The last outcry to stray.

Countless Penelopes, stars

The Lord embraces you again!

(Ah, blindness!
Cave-in of nights . . . )

And offers back Olympus,
Eternal flower of sleep.

translated by Andrew Frisardi 
in Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition