Today we read La sabbia del tempo, by Gabriele D'Annunzio. The whole collection of poems in which La sabbia del tempo appears, entitled Alcyone, is a celebration of Summer. It is articulated in five sections, each dedicated to part of the progression of the season, from June to September. This poem belongs to the second-to-last section, where the peak of Summer is at last bound to start declining into Autumn. More specifically, this section contains a subgroup of poems, the madrigali dell’estate (“summer’s madrigals”), whose first poem’s first verse reads: Estate, estate mia, non declinare! (“Summer, my summer, don’t decline!”) La sabbia del tempo comes right after: Nature’s response to the poet’s pleadings is time slipping away in his fingers, and growing anxiety at the coming shadows. The original: Come scorrea la calda sabbia lieve
Per entro il cavo della mano in ozio,
Il cor sentì che il giorno era più breve.
E un’ansia repentina il cor m’assalse
Per l’appressar dell’umido equinozio
Che offusca l’oro delle piagge salse.
Alla sabbia del Tempo urna la mano
Era, clessidra il cor mio palpitante,
L’ombra crescente d’ogni stelo vano
Quasi ombra d’ago in tacito quadrante.\ The music in this episode is De Torrente, from Vivaldi’s Dixit Dominus (RV 807), played by Cor i Orquestra de música antiga de l’Esmuc, Inés Alonso (soprano solista), Albert Baena (alto solista), Lluís Vila (director) (in the creative commons thanks to the Catalonia College of Music).
