Crossing the Tuscan Maremma
Giosuè Carducci
Sweet countryside whose impress I retain
In my wild ways and my disdainful song,
My breast where love and hate ne'er slumber long,
How leaps my heart beholding thee again:
I see familiar forms of hill and plain
With eyes uncertain, as I trace the throng
Of magic visions that to youth belong,
If they should glow with smiles or gloom with pain.
O vain was what I loved and vain my dream,
Ever I ran, but never reached the goal.
To-morrow I shall fall; but far-off gleam
The hills above the mists that round them roll;
Thy verdant plain where morning showers beam
With laughter, speaking peace unto my soul.
In his childhood, Carducci spent some years in Castagneto, in the Maremma region of Tuscany. He wrote this poem, evoking his childhood memories, three or four decades later.
