Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

There Is a Song

There is a song that surges deep inside
and it’s an ocean heaving to extend
over a spotless lacework of white tide
and brings thoughts of old storms to sudden end.
This song’s the dialect spoken on the hillside
of that blessed Mountain, forever a godsend,
that gives me peace, yet leaves me unsatisfied,
that makes me suffer, but is still a friend.
Swept by this tide of words, no foreign,
no alien shadow ever will endure,
every thought is cleansed, the heart is pure.
Within this water scented by the sun,
let me be drowned, as the last black of night
is drowned within the flooding of firstlight.
(Translated by Luigi Bonaffini)