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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359069" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Night Song Of A Wandering Shepherd In Asia</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">What doest thou in heaven, O moon?<br>Say, silent moon, what doest thou?<br>Thou risest in the evening; thoughtfully<br>Thou wanderest o'er the plain,<br>Then sinkest to thy rest again.<br>And art thou never satisfied<br>With going o'er and o'er the selfsame ways?<br>Art never wearied? Dost thou still<br>Upon these valleys love to gaze?<br>How much thy life is like<br>The shepherd's life, forlorn!<br>He rises in the early dawn,<br>He moves his flock along the plain;<br>The selfsame flocks, and streams, and herbs<br>He sees again;<br>Then drops to rest, the day's work o'er;<br>And hopes for nothing more.<br>Tell me, O moon, what signifies his life<br>To him, thy life to thee? Say, whither tend<br>My weary, short-lived pilgrimage,<br>Thy course, that knows no end?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And old man, gray, infirm,<br>Half-clad, and barefoot, he,<br>Beneath his burden bending wearily,<br>O'er mountain and o'er vale,<br>Sharp rocks, and briars, and burning sand,<br>In wind, and storm, alike in sultry heat<br>And in the winter's cold,<br>His constant course doth hold;<br>On, on, he, panting, goes,<br>Nor pause, nor rest he knows;<br>Through rushing torrents, over watery wastes;<br>He falls, gets up again,<br>And ever more and more he hastes,<br>Torn, bleeding, and arrives at last<br>Where ends the path,<br>Where all his troubles end;<br>A vast abyss and horrible,<br>Where plunging headlong, he forgets them all.<br>Such scene of suffering, and of strife,<br>O moon, is this our mortal life.<br>In travail man is born;<br>His birth too oft the cause of death,<br>And with his earliest breath<br>He pain and torment feels: e'en from the first,<br>His parents fondly strive<br>To comfort him in his distress;<br>And if he lives and grows,<br>They struggle hard, as best they may,<br>With pleasant words and deeds to cheer him up,<br>And seek with kindly care,<br>To strengthen him his cruel lot to bear.<br>This is the best that they can do<br>For the poor child, however fond and true.<br>But wherefore give him life?<br>Why bring him up at all,<br>If _this_ be all?<br>If life is nought but pain and care,<br>Why, why should we the burden bear?<br>O spotless moon, such _is_<br>Our mortal life, indeed;<br>But thou immortal art,<br>Nor wilt, perhaps, unto my words give heed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet thou, eternal, lonely wanderer,<br>Who, thoughtful, lookest on this earthly scene,<br>Must surely understand<br>What all our sighs and sufferings mean;<br>What means this death,<br>This color from our cheeks that fades,<br>This passing from the earth, and losing sight<br>Of every dear, familiar scene.<br>Well must thou comprehend<br>The reason of these things; must see<br>The good the morning and the evening bring:<br>Thou knowest, thou, what love it is<br>That brings sweet smiles unto the face of spring;<br>The meaning of the Summer's glow,<br>And of the Winter's frost and snow,<br>And of the silent, endless flight of Time.<br>A thousand things to thee their secrets yield,<br>That from the simple shepherd are concealed.<br>Oft as I gaze at thee,<br>In silence resting o'er the desert plain,<br>Which in the distance borders on the sky,<br>Or following me, as I, by slow degrees,<br>My flocks before me drive;<br>And when I gaze upon the stars at night,<br>In thought I ask myself,<br>'Why all these torches bright?<br>What mean these depths of air,<br>This vast, this silent sky,<br>This nightly solitude? And what am I?'<br>Thus to myself I talk; and of this grand,<br>Magnificent expanse,<br>And its untold inhabitants,<br>And all this mighty motion, and this stir<br>Of things above, and things below,<br>No rest that ever know,<br>But as they still revolve, must still return<br>Unto the place from which they came,--<br>Of this, alas, I find nor end nor aim!<br>But thou, immortal, surely knowest all.<br>_This_ I well know, and feel;<br>From these eternal rounds,<br>And from my being frail,<br>Others, perchance, may pleasure, profit gain;<br>To _me_ life is but pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My flock, now resting there, how happy thou,<br>That knowest not, I think, thy misery!<br>O how I envy thee!<br>Not only that from suffering<br>Thou seemingly art free;<br>That every trouble, every loss,<br>Each sudden fear, thou canst so soon forget;<br>But more because thou sufferest<br>No weariness of mind.<br>When in the shade, upon the grass reclined,<br>Thou seemest happy and content,<br>And great part of the year by thee<br>In sweet release from care is spent.<br>But when _I_ sit upon the grass<br>And in the friendly shade, upon my mind<br>A weight I feel, a sense of weariness,<br>That, as I sit, doth still increase<br>And rob me of all rest and peace.<br>And yet I wish for nought,<br>And have, till now, no reason to complain.<br>What joy, how much I cannot say;<br>But thou _some_ pleasure dost obtain.<br>My joys are few enough;<br>But not for that do I lament.<br>Ah, couldst thou speak, I would inquire:<br>Tell me, dear flock, the reason why<br>Each weary breast can rest at ease,<br>While all things round him seem to please;<br>And yet, if _I_ lie down to rest,<br>I am by anxious thoughts oppressed?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Perhaps, if I had wings<br>Above the clouds to fly,<br>And could the stars all number, one by one,<br>Or like the lightning leap from rock to rock,<br>I might be happier, my dear flock,<br>I might be happier, gentle moon!<br>Perhaps my thought still wanders from the truth,<br>When I at others' fortunes look:<br>Perhaps in every state beneath the sun,<br>Or high, or low, in cradle or in stall,<br>The day of birth is fatal to us all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Count+Giacomo+Leopardi">Count Giacomo Leopardi</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359069" data-title="Night Song Of A Wandering Shepherd In Asia de Count Giacomo Leopardi" data-description="What doest thou in heaven, O moon?
Say, silent moon, what doest thou?
Thou risest in the evening; thoughtfully
Thou wanderest o'er the plain,
Then sinkest to thy rest again.
And art thou never satisfied
With going o'er and o'er the selfsame ways?
..."></div>
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