Poems and translations

Chapter 19: I’VE THIRTY MONTHS

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About This Book

The collection gathers lyric and ballad-like poems that portray rural landscapes, local speech, and vivid characters through dark humor, elegy, and plainspoken lyricism; many pieces are concise narratives or monologues about love, death, loss, and social life, while others register mythic or meditative moods. A substantial section offers translations and adaptations from Petrarch, Villon, Leopardi, and medieval lyricists, varying between literal and free renderings. A prefatory essay frames the poet's interest in mixing exalted feeling with the material of ordinary life. The sequence balances songful rhythms with austere images and an abrupt, colloquial voice.

I’VE THIRTY MONTHS

I’ve thirty months, and that’s my pride,

Before my age’s a double score,

Though many lively men have died

At twenty-nine or little more.

I’ve left a long and famous set

Behind some seven years or three,

But there are millions I’d forget

Will have their laugh at passing me.

25, IX, 1908.