In the Fog

In the Fog

by GIOVANNI PASCOLI

TRANSLATED BY GEOFFREY BROCK

I stared into the valley: it was gone—   

wholly submerged! A vast flat sea remained,   

gray, with no waves, no beaches; all was one.   

And here and there I noticed, when I strained,   

the alien clamoring of small, wild voices:   

birds that had lost their way in that vain land.   

And high above, the skeletons of beeches,   

as if suspended, and the reveries   

of ruins and of the hermit’s hidden reaches.   

And a dog yelped and yelped, as if in fear,   

I knew not where nor why. Perhaps he heard   

strange footsteps, neither far away nor near—   

echoing footsteps, neither slow nor quick,   

alternating, eternal. Down I stared,   

but I saw nothing, no one, looking back.   

The reveries of ruins asked: “Will no   

one come?” The skeletons of trees inquired:   

“And who are you, forever on the go?”   

I may have seen a shadow then, an errant   

shadow, bearing a bundle on its head.   

I saw—and no more saw, in the same instant.   

All I could hear were the uneasy screeches   

of the lost birds, the yelping of the stray,   

and, on that sea that lacked both waves and beaches,

the footsteps, neither near nor far away.

published online here at Poetry Foundation