Una poesia di Lovecraft per Halloween!

Introduction

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890 – 1937) was an American writer and the father of horror and science fiction, thanks to his novels and short stories.
Lovecraft's major inspiration and innovation was cosmic horror, the idea that life is inexplicable to human minds, and that the universe is fundamentally alien.
Lovecraft also invented the “Cthulhu Mythos”, a series of looselyvagamente interconnected fiction featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoirelibro di magia of magical rites and forbidden lore.
His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, many modern horror writers (Stephen King, Bentley Little, Joe R. Lansdale, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and so on), have cited Lovecraft as one of their primary influences.

 

Halloween in a suburb

The steeplescampanili are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glarebagliore;
Past the chimneys comignolihigh see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutterbattono le ali, svolazzano and laughridono and stareosservano.

For the village dead to the moon outspreadlarga (lett. estesa)
Never shoneha brillato in the sunset's gleamraggio,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pitfossa of dream.

A chill wind blows through the rows of sheavesfilari di covoni
In the meadowsprati, campi that shimmer palebrillano pallidamente,
And comes to twineaggrovigliare where the headstoneslapidi shine
And the ghouls demoniof the churchyardcimitero wailsi lamentano
For harvestsraccolti that fly and fail.

Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That torestrapparono from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
And looses the vast unknown.

So here again stretch the valevalle and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leapdanzano gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung outsorgendo of the tomb's black mawfauci
To shake all the world with awepaura, timore.

And all that the mornmattino shall greetaccoglierà forlornperduto, derelitto, vano,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thickspessi, irti rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And broodtramando with the shades ombre unblestmaledette.

Then wild in the dark let the lemurs barkgrida dei lemuri,
And the leprouslebbroso spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the foldpieghe
Of horror and death are pennedsono avvolti,
For the houndssegugi of Time to renddilaniare.