Umberto Saba

The Borgo

It was in the ways of this
Borgo what a new thing
it happened to me.

It was like a vain
sigh
the sudden desire to go out
of myself, of living life
of all,
to be like everyone else
men of all
the days.

I was never so great
joy, nor have it from life I hope.
I was twenty that time, and I was
sick. For the new ones
streets of the Borgo the vain desire
like a sigh
he made me his.

Where in the sweet time
of childhood
few I saw lost
climbing bare houses
of the hill,
a fervent human village rose
work. In him the first
once suffered the sweet desire
and vain
to put mine in the heat
everyone's life,
to be like everyone else
men of all
the days.

Faith to have
of all, say
words, do
things that each one understands, and are,
like wine and bread,
like children and women,
values
of all. But a corner,
alas, I left to desire, blue
crack,
to contemplate me from that, to enjoy
the high joy obtained
of not being me anymore,
to be this only: among men
a man.

Born of the dark
events,
little was the desire, just a short one
sigh. I find it again
- lost echo
of youth - through the streets of the Borgo
changed
more than changed it is not me. On the walls
of the high houses,
on men and jobs, on everything,
the veil that wraps things has come down
finished.

The church is still
yellow, if the lawn
that surrounds it is less green. The sea,
that I see below, it has only one vessel,
huge,
which, stationary, folds to one side. Shapes,
colors,
life whence my sweet sigh was born
and vile, a world
finished. Shapes,
colors,
others I created, remaining myself,
only with my hard
suffer. And death
awaits me.

They will return,
or to this
Borgo, or to another like this, the days
of the flower. Another
will relive my life,
than in extreme labor
of youth, he will have asked for him,
hoped,
to put his into life
of all,
to be like everyone else
the men of one day will appear to him
since then.