Leopardi’s ‘L’infinito’ (1819)

Autumn 1819, a young Giacomo Leopardi was sitting on the hill near his small home town of Recanati, yearning to see more of the world. He wrote a poem about it, which he called ‘L’infinito’. It is, by all accounts, very widely known in Italy. Indeed the actual hill in actual Recanati even has the above monument to it. Here’s the poem:

‘L’infinito’

Sempre caro mi fu quest’ermo colle,
e questa siepe, che da tanta parte
dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani
silenzi, e profondissima quiete
io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco
il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
infinito silenzio a questa voce
vo comparando: e mi sovvien l’eterno,
e le morte stagioni, e la presente
e viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa
immensità s’annega il pensier mio:
e il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare.

Here’s my go at an English version:

Infinity

was always in my heart, this lonely hill,
and this hedgerow, and the larger part
of the far horizon it veils from view;
my sedentary amazement at endless
spaces opening beyond, the superhuman
silences, this profoundest quiet,
I fix it all up with my thoughts. It
almost scares my soul. As the wind
hisses through the leaves I set that
infinite silence against this voice,
for comparison: and remember eternity,
and the dead seasons, and the present
live one, and the sound it makes. Into this
immensity go my thoughts to drown:
and shipwreck is sweet in such an ocean.

I’m not sure any poet ever had a cooler name than ‘Jack Leopard’. I may be wrong about this.