translated by William Arrowsmith
Between the chestnuts thudding down
and torrent’s wail,
all one sound,
the heart falters.
The coming winter shudders
in the north wind. I face
the ledge where the day’s first white
light dissolves in ice.
Marblings, branchings—
and suddenly, at a shake,
leaves spiralling, arrowing down
into the ditch.
In the mist of its own breath,
the last herd passes.
Eugenio Montale
Although his body of works is small, Eugenio Montale is nonetheless revered as one of the twentieth century's greatest imaginative writers. During his lifetime he published only four collections of his poems, alongside several books of prose translations and original prose. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975, six years before his death.
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