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| Eugenio Montale, 12 October 1896 – 12 September 1981, recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature. |
The well's pulley creaks
the water rises to the light and merges with it.
Trembles a memory in the brimming pail,
in the pure circle an image smiles.
I draw a face to evanescent lips,
the past deforms itself, it grows old,
belongs to someone else...
Ah, how it already screeches
the wheel, it returns you to the gloomy bottom,
vision, a distance divides us.
From "Ossi di seppia" (Cuttlefish Bones), 1925
Translation in English by LiteraryJoint, Copyright © LiteraryJoint by Alessandro Baruffi
Original text, in Italian:
