Poems of Giacomo Leopardi/Poem 12

by Giacomo Leopardi

THE INFINITE.

  This lonely hill to me was ever dear,
  This hedge, which shuts from view so large a part
  Of the remote horizon. As I sit
  And gaze, absorbed, I in my thought conceive
  The boundless spaces that beyond it range,
  The silence supernatural, and rest
  Profound; and for a moment I am calm.
  And as I listen to the wind, that through
  These trees is murmuring, its plaintive voice
  I with that infinite compare;
  And things eternal I recall, and all
  The seasons dead, and this, that round me lives,
  And utters its complaint. Thus wandering
  My thought in this immensity is drowned;
  And sweet to me is shipwreck on this sea.