George Charles Beresford, William Butler Yeats, 1911

Fossimo noi bianchi uccelli, mia amata, sulla spuma del mare!
La fiamma della meteora ci stanca prima di appassire
e la fiamma dell’azzurra stella bassa nel cielo crepuscolare
ci ha ridesta, mia amata, nel cuore un’angoscia che non può morire.

Stanchezza esalano questi sognatori grevi di rugiade,
la rosa e il giglio; ah non sognare fiamma di meteora vagante,
né la fiamma dell’azzurra stella vizza mentre la rugiada cade:
ma ci muti la sorte in uccelli bianchi a galla sulla spuma errante!

Nostalgia d’isole innumerevoli mi tormenta e di danae prode,
dove ci dimentichi il Tempo e l’Affanno non osi calare;
lontani saremmo dal giglio e la rosa e la fiamma che rode,
fossimo noi bianchi uccelli, mia amata, sulla spuma del mare!

William Butler Yeats

(Traduzione di Leone Traverso)

da “William Butler Yeats, Poesie”, Vallecchi, Firenze, 1973

***

The White Birds

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

William Butler Yeats

da “The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics”, London: Forgotten Books, 1893