Shaded by cypresses, and in quiet urns
eased by the grief of mourners, is the sleep
of death any less hard? And when the Sun
no longer nourishes the family
of lovely plants and beasts on earth
for me; and when the hours to come have ceased
to dance their petty flatteries; and I,
sweet friend, am deaf to that sad harmony
that rules your verses; nor hear in my heart
the spirit of the Muses and of love,
the only spirit of my wanderer’s life;
how will it compensate for my lost days,
to have my bones distinguished by a stone
from all the countless others that are cast
on land and sea by death? How true it is,
Pindemonte, that even Hope, last Goddess,
flees from sepulchres: oblivion
wraps all things in its night: a labouring
force wearies their every motion – time
disguises man, his death-bed images, his tombs,
of farewell, relics of the earth and sky.
But why does mortal man, when still alive,
deny himself that fantasy by which,
deceased, he stops a while at Pluto’s door?
Does he not live perhaps under the earth
when daytime’s harmony is mute to him
if he can rouse it in his loved ones’ thoughts
with gentle cares? This loving correspondence
is one of heaven’s gifts to humankind,
by which we often live with our departed
friends, and they with us.
[...]
Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827)
Italian Poet
Picture taken in Montmartre Cemetry - Paris
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