Poems of Leopardi: Giacomo Leopardi

Poems of Leopardi

Giacomo Leopardi

Translated from the Italian by Francis Henry Cliffe

Giacomo Leopardi, the greatest Italian poet of the Nineteenth Century, was, born at Recanati, a town of the March of Ancona, on the twenty-ninth of June, 1798; the eldest son of Count Monaldo Leopardi, and Adelaide, his wife, daughter of the Marquis Antici. He had four brothers and one sister--Paolina. His father possessed a splendid library, and was a man of learning and literary tastes, appearing himself as an author in prose and verse.

Recanati is situated on an eminence in the Appenines, not far from Ancona and the celebrated shrine of Loreto; and as a biographer of our poet says: "Its natural beauties are superb, and the genius of its great son has made them incomparable." Up to the age of twenty-four Leopardi did not leave his native place. The constant sight of so lovely a landscape, bordered in the distance by the Adriatic, contributed in no slight measure to give him that exquisite taste and sympathy for nature, for which he is unique among the poets of his country.

POEMS

• TO ITALY.
• ON THE MONUMENT OF DANTE ABOUT TO BE ERECTED IN FLORENCE.
• TO ANGELO MAI
• ON THE MARRIAGE OF HIS SISTER PAOLINA.
• THE SOLILOQUY OF BRUTUS.
• TO SPRING; OR, THE FABLES OF ANTIQUITY.
• HYMN TO THE PATRIARCHS.
• THE LAST SONG OF SAPPHO.
• THE FIRST LOVE.
• THE LONELY BIRD.
• THE INFINITE.
• THE HOLIDAY NIGHT.
• TO THE MOON.
• SOLITUDE.
• TO HIS LOVE.
• THE REVIVAL.
• TO SILVIA.
• THE MEMORIES.
• THE NOCTURNAL SONG OF A NOMADIC SHEPHERD IN ASIA.
• THE RULING THOUGHT.
• LOVE AND DEATH.
• TO HIMSELF.
• ASPASIA.
• ON AN ANCIENT SEPULCHRAL BASSO RILIEVO REPRESENTING A MAIDEN TAKING LEAVE OF HER FRIENDS.
• THE SETTING OF THE MOON.
• THE GENISTA OR THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT.