E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare

Another Giacomo Leopardi poem, L’infinito.  Line distribution aside, I feel marginally better about my translation – though far from good.

Sempre caro mi fu quest’ermo colle,
e questa siepe, che da tanta parte
dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani
silenzi, e profondissima quïete
io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco
il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
infinito silenzio a questa voce
vo comparando: e mi sovvien l’eterno,
e le morte stagioni, e la presente
e viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa
immensità s’annega il pensier mio:
e il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare.

Always dear to me was this lonely hill,
and this hedge, which from so many sides
cuts off the view of the most distant horizon.
But sitting and wondering, I paint for myself in my thoughts
endless spaces beyond it, and more than human
silences, and most profound quiet. Where almost
my heart grows scared. And like the wind
I hear rustle among those trees, I keep
comparing the infinite silence to that voice.
And there comes to my mind eternity,
and the dead seasons, and the current
and living one, and its sound. So among this
immensity is drowned my thought.
And the shipwreck in this sea is sweet to me.

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