Salvatore Quasimodo

  

Agrigentum Road

There is still the wind that I remember 
firing the manes of horses, racing, 
slanting, across the plains, 
the wind that stains and scours the sandstone, 

and the heart of gloomy columns, telamons, 
overthrown in the grass. Spirit of the ancients, grey 

with rancour, return on the wind, 
breathe in that feather-light moss 
that covers those giants, hurled down by heaven. 
How alone in the space that’s still yours! 
And greater, your pain, if you hear, once more, 
the sound that moves, far off, towards the sea, 
where Hesperus streaks the sky with morning: 
the jew’s-harp vibrates 
in the waggoner’s mouth 
as he climbs the hill of moonlight, slow, 
in the murmur of Saracen olive trees.