Eugenio Montale

In spite of everything, there is still hope.

This morning we consider two poems by Eugenio Montale (October 12, 1896 – September 12, 1981), Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Montale wrote more than ten anthologies of short lyrics; a journal of poetry translation; several books of prose translations; two books of literary criticism; and one of fantasy prose.

House by the Sea

The journey ends here
in the petty worries that split
the heart that cannot cry out anymore.
The minutes now are regular and fixed
like the revolutions of the pump
One turn: water surfaces, resounds,
Another turn: more water, and some creaking.

The journey ends here, on this beach
worked by these assiduous, slow waves.
All the shoreline shows are sluggish mists
which the light breezes
weave into spirals:
and rarely in the still calm do you see
among the migrant islands of the air
spiny Corsica or Capraia

You ask if everything dissolves like this
in a dim haze of memories,
if every destiny’s fulfilled in this torpid hour
or the sigh of the breaker.
I’d like to say no, that the moment
when you’ll pass out of time is rushing towards you;
maybe only those who want to become infinite,
and, who knows, you can do it; I cannot.
I think for most of us there is no salvation,
but there’s someone who foils every plan,
crosses over, finds he’s what he hoped for.
Before I abdicate I’d like
to show you this way out,
unstable as foam or a trough
in the troubled fields of the sea.
And I’m leaving you my miser’s hope.
I’m too tired to grow it for the future;
I pledge against your fate, so you’ll escape.
The road ends on this shore
the tide gnaws with its come-and-go.
Maybe your nearby heart that doesn’t hear me
has already set sail for the eternal.

--Eugenio Montale

(translated by Jonathan Galassi)