Last Voyage: Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli

IV. The Warlike Cranes

109 IV. The Warlike Cranes The wandering cranes say, “Sleep,” to the pilot. “Plow,” they say to the farmer, from the clouds above each one. Plow: tie the shaft of the plow to the oxen’s yoke; they are all well fed on hay from the barn; look to what you don’t have, son of Laertes. Make, with the hide of a slaughtered ox, a pair of leggings to protect you from the cold: but first of all, fill the inside with felt, then sew together, with tendons from the ox, skins of first born kids to cover your shoulders from rain water: and on your head put the head an old wolf you hunted, to keep you warm, whose white fangs will devour the sleet and the winds. It is time to plow the field, not the sea, from which you can see not even a handful of seven stars in the Great Bear. It’s sixty days until the sun returns, until the Great Bear, the stars that guide you, will return. Then the breeze will be sweet, the sea calm, the brilliant huntsman will be visible and in the mornings, you will hear the chattering of a swallow that has also returned. Now the sea is calm, the breeze is sweet, the breeze calls to the sail, the sea calls to the oar, and even a cuckoo is melodious and sings to the plowman in the vineyard. This was the song that gnawed the heart of him who had no ox, only a plow—and so 110 ch’egli ha bel dire, Prestami il tuo paro! Son le faccende, ed ora ogni bifolco semina, e poi, sicuro della fame, ode venti fischiare, acque scrosciare, ilare. E intanto esse, le gru, moveano verso l’Oceano, a guerra, in righe lunghe, empiendo il cielo d’un clangor di trombe. 111 he spoke these fine words: “Give me two oxen. Then prepare to till.” He makes ready to depart, every plowman seeds his fields, secure in his reputation, and hears the wind whistle, the spring rain beat down. In the meantime, the cranes move toward the ocean, to the struggle, in straight lines, filling the sky with the clamor of their trumpets. ...