l'infinito...

This lonely hill has always
Been dear to me, and this thicket
Which shuts out most of the final
Horizon from view. I sit here,
and gaze, and imagine
The interminable spaces
That stretch away, beyond my mind,
Their uncanny silences,
Their profound calms; and my heart
is almost overwhelmed with dread.
And when the wind drones in the
Branches, I compare its sound
with that infinite silence;
And i think of eternity,
And the dead past, and the living
Present, and the sound of it;
And my thought drowns in immensity;
And shipwreck is sweet in such sea.

giacomo leopardi, translated by kenneth rexroth