A few words on “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, and its Italian version, by Literary Joint

 

1st edition (publ. Henry Holt, 1923)

Together with the poet, we may wonder whom those woods belong to, other than a known local landowner. The dark and profound realm of the woods beckons from afar, in the peaceful quietness of a snowy  evening, and a premonition of the perfect sleep falls upon the traveler, as he recoils back. The trip is still far from over, and all sorts of social obligations pull back towards the reality of life; yet the sleep, a sweet sleep, will come someday, and the notion of it is a companion of all our journeys.  

We present below an Italian translation of “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, as well as its original text in English,  from the collection "New Hampshire", published in 1923.

Fermandosi nei pressi dei boschi in una sera di neve

Di chi siano questi boschi credo lo so
La sua casa è al villaggio, però;
Egli non mi vedrà fermarmi qua
A guardare i suoi boschi riempirsi di neve.

Il mio cavalluccio dovrà trovare strano
Fermarsi da ogni fattoria fuori mano
Tra i boschi e il lago gelato
La sera più buia dell'anno.

Questi fa scuoter i campanelli delle briglie
A chiedermi se non ci sia qualche sbaglio.
L'unico altro suono è lo spazzare
Di vento facile e piumosi fiocchi.

I boschi sono magnifici, fondi e neri,
Ma ho promesse da mantenere,
E miglia da percorrere prima di dormire,
E miglia da percorrere prima di dormire.

Robert Frost, dalla raccolta "New Hampshire", 1923. Traduzione in italiano a cura di LiteraryJoint.

Original English Text:

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

by Robert Frost, from the collection "New Hampshire", 1923

An Italian Christmas Tale: "L'Inverno e il Re Triste, una Favola." A special gift from LiteraryJoint: free e-book download

Alle soglie dell'inverno, al limitare dei suoi giorni, un Re si spinge fin nei meandri del bosco, ove una creatura delle foreste gli confiderà un segreto fuggevole e misterioso.

Free download throughout this Holiday Season. Get your free e-book and enjoy!

Front cover of "L'Inverno e il Re Triste, una Favola," 2012

The Trees and the Wind, Appearences: a Poem from "Jersey Blues, Selected Poems"

Miners in the Snow: Winter, by Vincent van Gogh, 1882, Van Gogh Museum
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

"Denn wir sind wie Baumstämme im Schnee. Scheinbar liegen sie glatt auf, und mit kleinem Anstoß sollte man sie wegschieben können. Nein, das kann man nicht, denn sie sind fest mit dem Boden verbunden. Aber sieh, sogar das ist nur scheinbar." 
Die Bäume, by F. Kafka.
  

The Trees and the Wind, Appearances 

The wind
blows
through curved trees.

Trees
expire
in the curves of the wind.

Princeton, New Jersey, October 2005.
From "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

The Long Discourses of the Buddha

The Chinese Diamond Sutra, the oldest known dated printed book, 868 CE, Tang Dynasty.

The Long Discourses of the Buddha is an invaluable collection of the teachings of the Buddha, which we are very happy to present to our readers in this prominent translation work in English: "Digha Nikaya: The Long Discourses". The discourses not only represent a pinnacle of philosophy and morality, but also a source of a most notable poetic prose, whereby, through the use of metaphors, the most intangible conceptual ideas are passed down, for us to attempt to grasp.  

This precious work, edited by, Access to Insight, is offered thanks to the generosity of many, many authors, translators, publishers, and transcribers, who contributed their efforts absolutely free of charge, as an expression of dana.

'The Snow Will Fall', a Poem from the collection 'Jersey Blues'

Edvard Munch's 'Avenue in the Snow', '1906, 'Pompidou Centre, Paris

The Snow Will Fall

From the Labrador Sea, a howling, raging wind
blows and rattles my evening.
I am far away, lost. A greyish cat,
scrawny and restless, roving from corner to corner.
Finding no peace. Yet free. Or enslaved?
Who knows! And where is everybody?

Memories fall, they crumble...

Only a reminiscence of love
obstinately persists, chases my footsteps.
Certainly, I must have dreamt.
Such a wonderful dream, that the mere
sorrow of awaking casts a shadow
upon the day, and an entire existence.

Soon the snow will fall…

Princeton, New Jersey, December 2002
From "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book and Amazon Kindle.

'Arch Street', a Poem from the collection 'Jersey Blues'

Arch Street, Philadelphia (West from Broad St.), by James Cremer, 1821-1893

 

Arch Street

How fervent with life is the ephemeral city:
effervescent lives, yet doomed,
so precarious that, if only
awakened, the wind could easily push
aside, shuffling faces and destinies,
on an idle Saturday’s mid-Summer noon.

The sidewalks of China Town,
the alleys, the workshops, the odorous walls,
holding us to their ancient womb;
the fleeting hug of a mother,
already sunk into oblivion, to the
rascal lost on the street.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 2005 

From "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on Amazon Kindle, iBookstore and NOOK Book.

"The Road not Taken," by Robert Frost, Italian version, translated by LiteraryJoint

Mountain Interval, First edition, Publisher Henry Holt, 1920 La strada non presa Due strade divergevano in un giallo bosco, E dispiaciuto di non poter percorrerle entrambe E viaggiando da solo, rimasi lì lungamente E scrutai l'una più che potei Fin laddove girava nella boscaglia; Allora presi l'altra, che tanto valeva E aveva magari più fascino, Perché era erbosa e chiedeva di esser percorsa; Sebbene per tanto così il passarvi Le aveva consumate entrambe pressapoco lo stesso, E tutte e due quel mattino ugualmente giacevano In foglie che nessun calpestio di passi aveva annerito. Ah, tenni la prima per un altro giorno. Ma sapendo bene come una via conduce ad altra via, Dubitavo che vi sarei mai tornato. Dovrei raccontarlo con un sospiro Da qualche parte tante e tante stagioni or sono: Due vie divergevano in un bosco, ed io— Io presi quella meno percorsa, E ciò fece tutta la differenza. Robert Frost, dalla raccolta "Mountain Interval", 1920.
Versione in italiano a cura di LiteraryJoint. The Road not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. by Robert Frost, from the collection "Mountain Interval", 1920.

Paesaggio Notturno, Night Landscape, by Vincenzo Cardarelli, English version

Starry Night, by Edvard Munch, 1893,  The J. Paul Getty Museum

Night Landscape

It lies up there my childhood.
There upon that hill
that I see again at night,
passing by on the railway,
marked by bright lights.
Smell of burnt stubble
strikes me at the station.
Ancient and diffuse smell
similar to many voices calling me.
But the train flees. I go, not knowing where.
My company is a friend
who is not even awake.
No one thinks or guesses
what it means to me
this motherly land which I overfly
like a stranger, like a betrayer.

by Vincenzo Cardarelli, from the collection "Prologhi", 1916
From "Vincenzo Cardarelli: The Forgotten amongst the Great. A Collection of the Best Poems by Vincenzo Cardarelli, Translated in English," available as e-book on Amazon Kindle, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, on NOOK Book, on Kobo, and as printed, traditional edition through Lulu.

Paesaggio notturno

Giace lassù la mia infanzia.

Lassù in quella collina
ch’io riveggo di notte,
passando in ferrovia,
segnata di vive luci.
Odor di stoppie bruciate
m’investe alla stazione.
Antico e sparso odore
simile a molte voci che mi chiamino.
Ma il treno fugge. Io vo non so dove.
M’è compagno un amico
che non si desta neppure.
Nessuno pensa o immagina
che cosa sia per me
questa materna terra ch’io sorvolo
come un ignoto, come un traditore. 

Vincenzo Cardarelli, dalla raccolta "Prologhi", 1916

Jersey Blues, Selected Poems, from the Garden State of New Jersey

New Jersey's State Seal

A foreword from the author:

    In my many years in America, like a pilgrim, or a spiritual vagrant, crisscrossing the country—always rolling on the very fabric of the continent: westwards and eastwards, to the eternal oceans, and from the northern vast plains down through the Appalachian, to the deep recesses of the lowlands, to the swamps—infallibly enough, I would always return to my dwelling in Princeton. 
    Many a time the lonely night was devoted to the contemplation of the moon of New Jersey, as I licked the wounds of a sore soul. I always wondered, how different that pale, ghostly circle of a moon was, from the one I encountered elsewhere above the magnificent land that I had been scampering about, and from the lost moon of my childhood.
    Yet, with adulthood—or maturity—seeing at last the rise and fall of earthling matters, I would flinch, my heart recoiling, as from something unpleasant. Thus, through the jaundiced, estranged buoy in the sky, I would recall past memories, and hold out my quivering hand to reach over to the always-receding mysteries of existence. These are, in essence, my "Jersey Blues."

"Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

Indian Summer, a Poem

Landscape with female bathers, Pierre-August Renoir, 1885

Indian Summer

Long, Summer-like days, how shorter
You have all grown!
Yet, look at the sun: boldly
It shines still, in the terse skies:
Yellow, bright, warmer even...
A true deceit!
How a body clings, as it recedes
And sinks, in a sea of mellow memories.
Now that the clouds set to huddle
In the brooding heavens,
Like in a flock they gather,
And grow darker, for a storm
Is foreknown in the sultry air.
Then, one fine evening,
Suspended in await, 
Simply and  inexorably,
Like all earthly things,
The cool breeze that
Settles in afterwards, tells a story
As old as the world.
Then, the tree that was green
Sheds its leaves, and rattles,
And chills.  

Barcelona, Catalunya, October 2013

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After Apple-Picking, by Robert Frost; Original English version and translation in Italian: Dopo la Raccolta delle Mele (Robert Frost)

Robert Frost, around year 1910

After Apple-Picking

by Robert Frost, from the collection North of Boston, 1915

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

  

For an analysis of the poem's structure, metrics and form, I will refer my amiable readers to a great contribution by PoemShape.

Dopo la Raccolta delle Mele

Robert Frost, da North of Boston, 1915

La mia lunga scala a due punte s'innalza fra un albero
Quasi verso i cieli,
E c'è un cesto che non ho riempito
Giusto accanto, e ci sono forse due o tre
Mele che non ho colto su un qualche ramo.
Ma ho finito di cogliere mele adesso.
Essenza di sonno invernale pervade la notte,
L'odore di mele: mi sto assopendo.
Non posso distogliere dalla mia vista la stranezza
Venuta dal guardare attraverso un vetro
Che ho preso stamane dall' abbeveratorio
E tenuto contro il mondo d'erba e brina.
S'è sciolto, e  io l'ho lasciato cadere e rompersi.
Ma stavo bene
Sul punto di dormire prima che cadesse,
E pareva sapessi
Che forme avrebbe preso il mio sognare.
Mele ingigantite appaiono e scompaiono,
La parte del picciolo e la parte del fiore,
Ed ogni macchiolina rossiccia ben definita.
L'incavo del mio piede non solo duole,
Ma sente ancora la pressione del piolo.
Sento l'oscillare della scala al curvarsi del ramo.
E continuo a udire dal cassone della cantina
Il suono rimbombante
di carichi e carichi di mele che si riversano.
Poiché ne ho abbastanza
Di raccoglier mele: mi sono stancato troppo
Del grande raccolto che io stesso avevo desiderato.
V'erano decine di migliaia di frutti da toccare,
accudire nella mano, staccare, a non lasciar cadere.
Poiché quelle
Che toccavano terra,
Non importa se non ammaccate o ricoperte di sporco,
Finivano di sicuro nel cumulo per fare il sidro
Come se non avessero più valore.
Si può ben vedere cosa disturberà
Questo mio sonno, qualunque esso sia.
Se non se ne fosse andata,
La marmotta potrebbe dire se è cosí  il suo
Lungo sonno, como descrivo il suo approssimarsi,
O semplicemente un po' di umano sonno.

Versione in italiano a cura di LiteraryJoint

After Apple-Picking

  by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19975#sthash.FlT4fMlY.dpuf

After Apple-Picking

  by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19975#sthash.FlT4fMlY.dpuf

'Fratelli', 'Brothers', by Giuseppe Ungaretti, English version

The poet in a trench, on the Italian-Austro-Ungarian war front, ca. 1916, source
http://www.lagrandeguerra.info
http://www.lagrandeguerra.info/links.php

The most comprehensive English translation of the work of Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888 – 1970,) the leading representative of the experimental literary movement called Hermeticism, or Hermeticpoetry. This edition includes poems from all of his major collections: "Porto Sepolto (1916,) “L'allegria di naufragi” (1919,)"L'allegria" (1931,) “Sentimento del tempo” (1933,) and "Il dolore," (1947.)

Available as ebook as Amazon Kindle and Kobo.

Amidst the horrors of WWI, in the darkest night, a word of hope lingers in the air, in this magnificent composition by Hermetic poetry master Giuseppe Ungaretti. Both versions of the poem (the first, originally entitled Soldato, appearing in the 1916 collection Porto sepolto and in the 1919 collection Allegria, as well as the final, entitled Fratelli,  from the 1942 editon of Allegria) are presented below, in English.

Brothers 

 

What's your regiment
brothers?

Trembling word
in the nigh

Leaf that is just born

In the spasmodic air
involuntary revolt
of a man present to his
fragility

Brothers


by G. Ungaretti, final version from the collection "Allegria", 1942

Soldier

What's your regiment
brothers?

Brother
trembling word
in the night
like a tiny leaf
just born


Heartfelt greeting
in the spasmodic air
whispered
supplication
for help
to a man present to his
fragility



By G. Ungaretti, first version, July 1915, as first appeared in the collection "Porto Sepolto", 1916.

Original versions in Italian, full text:

New Life, a Poem from "Jersey Blues"

Impression, Soleil Levant (Impression, Sunrise), Claude Monet,1872
Oil on canvas, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.

New Life

Don't shuffle again, brother,
— obstinately — along the old path,
walking ancient, accustomed,
tangled trails, sunk deep
in the meanders of mind:
the ruins where upon
sheer desolation is your fate.

In the obscurity, also flickers a light:
each day a dawn, and an intellect,
so that you may prevail
the misery of existence.

Princeton, New Jersey, January 2004  

From the collection Jersey Blues, also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, Audiobook in English, Full Version

Classic Literature VideoBook with synchronized text, interactive transcript, and closed captions in multiple languages. Audio courtesy of Librivox. Read by Roger Melin.

Credits: CC Prose Audiobooks www.youtube.com/user/CCProse

Of Love, Death and Oblivion, a Poem from "Jersey Blues"

 Edvard Munch - Kiss by the Window, Oil on Canvas, 1892

 

Of Love, Death and Oblivion

Hush!  Sleep!

In the end, it wasn't

other than the rustling

of the wind in empty rooms,

the moribund crackling of fires

of faded memories, the voices

that once awoke us.

You lay down, in this June night,

forgetful and wholly freed from sin.

Faces, sounds, fascinations,

obliterated they sink in the sea,

dark and profound, as the night

in which you became oblivious of

what today no longer is, of this

and many other worlds.

Princeton, New Jersey, June 2003

This is in an excerpt from the Poem "Of Love, Death and Oblivion," from the collection "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

"Life", from "Jersy Blues, Selected Poems"

The Seine at Saint-Cloud,  Edvard Munch, 1890, The Munch Museum, Oslo

Life

Life, my life.

Silent stream that insinuates
in the clearing, river unfolding
majestically, gravelly water of a torrent.

Life, my life.

You are the roaring waterfall,
the honed stone,
the atavist gravel bed.

Life, life, my life.

San Francisco, California, Spring 2003 

From the collection Jersey Blues, also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

A Sportsman's Sketches (Записки охотника, "The Hunting Sketches", or "Sketches from a Hunter's Album") by Ivan Turgenev, Full Text English Version

Portrait of Ivan Turgenev, by Vasily Perov, 1872

This magnificent collection (1852) of short stories by the great Russian Realist master Ivan Turgenev was the first work granting him fame and recognition. Based on personal observations on the hunting trails of the family's estate at Spasskoye, the writer depicts scenes of naturalistic sketches and everyday life, narrating the stories of peasants, serfs, and fellow land owners he comes across with, as well as the many injustices and contradictions of the social system of serfdom. Below we present a brief summary of each stories of the collection, along with the fully available version of A Sportsman's Sketches Full Text in English.

Hor and Kalinych: Story of two peasants, one idealist and the other very industrious, under the dependance of the same petty landowner.

Yermolay and the Miller’s Wife: Story of the narrator’s hunter friend, and a night they spent at a miller’s home; the miller, named Zvyerkoff, offers an insight on the injustices of serfdom. 

Raspberry Spring: As the narrator encounters two peasants at a tiny spring, he learns about the many self-deprivations all peasants take upon themselves. 

The District Doctor: Struck with fever in a small village, the narrator is visited by a district doctor who tells him the story of how he fell in love with a dying girl.

My Neighbor Radilov: The narrator meets with a widowed landowner named Radilov and dines at his house; the cordial neighbor dwells with his sister-in-law Olga—with whom he will soon disappear—, his elderly mother and a demented old nobleman. 

The peasant-proprietor Ovsyanikov: A poor landowner talks about the social ills of serfdom, the old times and the new ones. Like all attentive observers, the narrator takes a step back and listens.

Lgov: The narrator and his trusted huntsman Yermolay set off ducks hunting in a nearby hamlet. They meet  a pretentious local hunter named Vladimir and an old peasant who acts as the local fisherman, Old Knot. They go hunting in a swampy pond on a rickety punt, sink the boat and narrowly escape, wading ashore. 

Bezhin Lea: Upon nightfall the narrator finds himself lost in the forest and comes across a clearing where he meets up, as they crouch by the fire, with five peasant boys guarding a drove of horses. As the narrator feigns to be asleep, the innocent boys recount dreadful and mysterious stories. The majesty of the sky and of the omniscient nature in a glorious Russian mid-Summer night breaths beautifully throughout. 

Kassyan of Fair Springs: While the narrator and his coachmen Erofayis are off to a trip, the carriage's axle breaks and they venture off to a nearby hamlet for assistance; there they meet Kassyan, a fifty-year-old dwarf who lives there and who belongs to some unknown religious sect. To procure a new axle, he takes them to a clearing where a forest is being felled. A reflection upon established society and the ancestral relation with nature, traditions and religion. 

The Agent: A vivid example of peasantry’s exploitation, the story recounts of how a shrewd bailiff takes advantages of his aloof and distant landowner, who is an acquaintance of the  narrator. The peasants on a rent system are reduced to slavery by the cunning agent, without any intervention from the proprietor.

The Counting-House: The narrator comes across a run-down shack, the counting house of the local landowner, where he accidentally overhears the head clerk abusing his powers, and learns about the many vexations peasants are subject to.

Biryuk: At night, caught by a raging storm in the forest in a droshky, the narrator comes across a man, Biryuk, who watches over the landowner’s woods. He learns that man’s wife fled, leaving him and the children alone. When the forester hears in distance a peasant felling a tree, he sets out to confront him, catches him and threatens to turn him to the landowner. In the end Biryuk unexpectedly shows compassion and sets the peasant free. 

Two Country Gentlemen: The presentation of two landowners which are neighbors of the narrator offers the opportunity, in the background, for a description of mistreatment of peasants and the wretchedness of their condition. 

Lebedyan: The narrator comes across a town's horse fair and vividly describes the typical hustle and bustle of such lively rural events, while also resolving to buy a horse for himself. 

The Forest and the Steppe: Epilogue of the sketches, whereby Turgenev offers a magnificent description of a hunter’s life.

Saint Lawrence's Night, a Poem

Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone,  1888, Oil on canvas

Saint Lawrence's Night

In this night of Saint Lawrence,
similar to other nights of mine,
under such weeping sky,
similar to other skies of mine,
I wonder lonely along the way.
Father, where are you? And where are you, Ma?
Where are you now, woman? And where the son,
that was denied? To whom avails
my existence, now that along the path,
flickering stars — like trembling, unhorsed,
desperate  chevaliers — are falling upon my head?

Princeton, New Jersey, August 2004

From the collection Jersey Blues, also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

A few words on "Mowing" by Robert Frost. Original text in English and translation in Italian (Mowing, Falciando l'Erba, by Robert Frost)

The Scythers, N.C. Wyeth, oil on canvas 1908

A highly evocative poem whereby an everyday experience—a mid-Summer day, cutting grass with a long scythe—recalls secretive, inexplicable meanings. Life and death alike beckon from a distance; the role of poetry, the actuality of living, the consciousness of the dreadful boundaries of existence— they all cast their long shadows on the poet's swale and its hay left to make.

Mowing

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make. 

From "West-Running Brooks", Robert Frost, 1928

Falciando l'erba

Non c'era mai altro suono accanto al bosco che uno,
Ed era la mia lunga falce che sussurrava alla terra.
Che cosa sussurrava esattamente? Non lo sapevo bene nemmeno io;
Forse era qualcosa a proposito della calura del sole,
Qualcosa, forse, circa l'assenza di suono—
Ed era per questo che sussurrava e non parlava.
Non era il sogno del dono di ore oziose,
O l'oro facile nelle mani di fata o elfo:
Ogni cosa oltre la verità sarebbe parsa troppo debole
All'amore sincero che deponeva le erbe a file,
Non senza i gambi flebilmente appuntiti dei fiori
(Pallide orchidi), e una spaventata serpe di verde brillante.
La realtà è il più dolce sogno che il lavoro conosca.
La mia lunga falce sussurrava e lasciava che si facesse il fieno.

da "West-Running Brooks", Robert Frost, 1928
Versione in Italiano a cura di LiteraryJoint


 

July and the Night

Evening Landscape With Rising Moon, Vincent Van Gogh, Saint-Rémy de Provence, 1889, oil on canvas

July and the Night 

I breathe Turgenev—

"... In the pure dry air there is a scent
of wormwood, rye in blossom, and buckwheat;

even an hour before nightfall there is no moisture
in the air. It is for such weather that the farmer 

longs, for harvesting his wheat..."

The end of a glorious July day.

In the secretive orchard of my ancestors,
Crouched at the foot of a scrawny, old pear tree,
I recollected all my past, long gone summers,

And wondered how long the tree had been standing;
It always yielded small, pale-green pears:
Sour when firm, in the prime time of summer,
Sweet and juicy, when full and ripe.
Grandfather must have planted it, well before my days;
No special care or attention was required from us,
For the trunk was joined to the land,
The tree drew moisture from the rainfall,
And was married to the sun.
When I was little I used to climb
Up to the lower, slender branches,
For I wouldn't venture any higher.
—My being brimmed over with tenderness...—
The crickets chirped their laborious love songs,

And bats flitted around the tree tops, against the blue.

Hovering in the fresh breeze, I smelled the odorous youth,
That once ran through my weary limbs.
Across the magnificent hour-glass of the terse sky,
The night shadows advanced rapidly upon the blackening earth.
I chilled: the pitch-dark night was a hypothesis,
The dream-like sentry to my besieged, solitary fortress.
As the night fell upon me, I closed my eyes
And felt merriment all around.
I thought to myself that,  although we took no heed,
While the tree lived, I too lived, and saw a bit of the world.

The orchard was whispering mysteriously, and in the nearby
Gardens the flowers had closed their corollas, seeking rest.
As the tide of memories ebbed, my existence receded, too;
I quivered in fright: it was a nook that a soul
May never let go of lightheartedly.

Amsterdam, July, 2013

Copyright © Alessandro Baruffi
Check out the Author's Bookstore.

"Il villaggio vicino", da "Un medico di campagna", F. Kafka, (Das nächste Dorf, from "Ein Landarzt", 1919), versione in italiano

F. Kafka, Ein Landarzt. 14 Kleine Erzählungen. München und Leipzig: K. Wolff 1919

Il villaggio vicino

 

Mi nonno soleva dire: "La vita è sorprendentemente breve. Ora, nel ricordo, essa si contrae a tal punto che, per esempio, mi riesce difficile comprendere come un giovane possa decidere di cavalcare fino al villaggio vicino, senza temere che - a prescindere da fatalità sfortunate - anche il tempo di una vita comune e felice non sia, per una tale cavalcata, di gran lunga insufficiente. 

F. Kafka, Un Medico di Campagna, 1919
Versione in Italiano a cura di LiteraryJoint

Testo originale tedesco:
Mein Großvater pflegte zu sagen: »Das Leben ist erstaunlich kurz. Jetzt in Erinnerung drängt es sich mir so zusammen, daß ich zum Beispiel kaum begreife, wie ein junger Mensch sich entschließen kann, ins nächste Dorf zu reiten, ohne zu fürchten, daß - von unglücklichen Zufällen ganz abgesehen - schon die Zeit des gewöhnlichen, glücklich ablaufenden Lebens für einen solchen Ritt bei weitem nicht hinreicht.«

F. Kafka, Ein Landarzt, 1919

Onto You, a Poem from "Jersey Blues, Selected Poems"

A Bedouin and his camel resting before going down to the Gates of Cairo,

by Nellie Hadden

Onto You

I would cling onto you
as in the deceiving doze 
under the docile arches
laden with stars
abandons himself
half of the way
a Bedouin in the desert.


Princeton, New Jersey, April, 2003

From the collection Jersey Blues, also available on iBookstore and NOOK Book.

Non chiederci la parola, Do not ask us for the word, by Eugenio Montale, in English

"Ossi di Seppia", cover of the 1925 edition

Do not ask us for the word

 

Do not ask us for the word that gives shape from all angles

to our formless soul, and in letters of fire

declares it, and shines forth like a crocus,

lost in the middle of a dusty field.

Ah, the man who goes on confidently,

to others and to himself a friend,

unfazed by his own shadow which the Dog Star

stamps over a decrepit wall!

Do not demand from us the formula unfolding worlds before you,
rather a few crooked syllables - and dry like a twig.  
That alone today we can tell you,
who we are not, what we do not want.

Eugenio Montale, from "Ossi di Seppia", 1923 


 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books-the-full-montale-1046186.html

Original text in Italian

The Escape, a Poem from "Jersey Blues"

'The Hunted Slaves', Richard Ansdell, Oil on canvas, 1861, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

 

The Escape

Escape,
like the slave
from the tantalizing plantation
in the sultry, pitch-black night.

Escape,
like the lost maid
from the bitter alcove
under the round moon.

Escape,
like the evening shadows,
from the reddening hill-sides
of the dying soul.

And as you run away,
it occurs to you how there is
no shelter in this world,
nor in the other.

Princeton, New Jersey, April 2006

From the collection Jersey Blues, also available on iBookstore,  NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

A Night at San Siro, Notte a San Siro, (FC Internazionale, Inter Milan)

 

The Founders of Football Club Internazionale, Milano, March 9, 1908

Official pledge of the founders' fathers:

--"Nascerà qui, al ristorante "L'orologio", ritrovo di artisti e sarà per sempre una squadra di grande talento. Questa notte splendida darà i colori al nostro stemma: il nero e l'azzurro sullo sfondo d'oro delle stelle. Si chiamerà Internazionale, perchè noi siamo fratelli del mondo".--

--"Born here, at the restaurant "L'orologio", gathering of artists, it will always be a team of superb talents. This magnificent night will give its colors to our shield: the black and the blue on the golden background of the stars. Its name will be Internazionale, for we are brothers to the whole world".--

Milano, March 9, 1908

Notte a San Siro

“Ganar: felicitar a todos.
Perder: no criticar, pedir amistad”. 
H. Herrera

Le erbe verdeggian come diamante, 

nella buia notte nera di pece 

rifulge San Siro di luce abbacinante.

Azzurre arcate di cielo ci sovrastano ignare, 

oltre il muro di volti, cuori, mani 

e occhi strabuzzati nel trepido sognare.

Dipanando le ragnatele del giuoco 

l’amata casacca follemente  schierata 

nel rettangolo crepitante come fuoco.

Princeton, May 2006 
Copyright © Alessandro Baruffi

A Night at San Siro 

The verdant grass is diamond: 

in the pitch-dark night 

San Siro glows with dazzling lights.

  

Blue arches of sky - unaware - hang over us, 

beyond the wall of faces, hearts, hands, 

and dreamy eyes, wide open in trepidation.

    

Unwinding the game's cobwebs 

- folly of formations! - stand the beloved

jerseys, as the turf crackles like fire.

Princeton, May 2006 
Copyright © Alessandro Baruffi