The rain in the pine grove
La pioggia nel pineto by Gabriele D’Annunzio
Silence. On the threshold
of the forest I don’t hear
the compassionate words
you say; instead I hear
newer words
spoken by
the distant drips and leaves.
Listen. It rains
from scattered clouds.
It rains on the tamaracks,
salty and burnt;
it rains on the pines,
prickly and flaking;
it rains on the divine
myrtle,
on the brooms resplendent
with welcome flowers,
on the juniper thick
with fragrant berries;
it rains on our faces,
sylvan;
it rains on our hands,
naked;
it rains on our light
clothes,
on the fresh thoughts
that the young soul
opens,
on the beautiful fable
that yesterday
mislead you, that today misleads me,
O Hermione.
Do you hate it? The rain falling
on the isolated
greenery
with a crackle that lingers
and changes in the air depending on the
most sparse, least sparse foliage.
Listen. The song
of the cicadas
responds to the weeping,
which does not make the southern weeping,
nor the ashen sky,
afraid.
And the pine
has one sound, and the myrtle
another sound, and the juniper
another still; different
instruments
under countless fingers.
And immense
are we in the sylvan
spirit,
living the woodland life;
and your drunken face
is soft from the rain
like a leaf,
and your tangle of hair
smells like
the bright brooms,
or an earthly creature
that has the name
Hermione.
Listen, Listen. The harmony
of the aerial cicadas
little by little
becomes duller
under the growing
cries;
but a song pours out to you,
more hoarse,
rising from below,
from the damp, distant shadows.
More dull and more weak,
it slows down, dies out.
Only one note
still quivers; it fades,
rises again, trembles, fades.
You can't hear, on every branch,
the downpour
of the silvery rain
that heals,
the downpour that changes
according to the
most dense, least dense foliage.
Listen.
The daughter of the air
is silent, but the distant daughter
of the loam,
the frog,
sings in the deepest shadow,
who knows where, who knows where!
And it rains on your eyelashes,
Hermione.
It’s raining on your black eyelashes,
so it seems that you’re crying
but from joy; not a molt,
but almost a verdant excrement,
as though you were coming out of your skin.
And all of life is fresh in us,
fragrant,
the heart in our chest is like an untouched
peach,
between our eyelids our eyes
are like springs among the grass,
our teeth in their cavities
are like unripe almonds.
And we go from thicket to thicket,
now combined, now dissolved
(and the rough, green energy
ties our ankle bones together,
tangles our knees)
who knows where, who knows where!
And it rains on our faces,
sylvan,
it rains on our hands,
naked,
it rains on our light
clothes,
on the fresh thoughts
that the young soul
opens,
on the beautiful fable
that yesterday
mislead you, that today misleads me,
O Hermione.