Look, Stranger!
Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.
Here at a small field’s ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide.
And the shingle scrambles after the suck-
ing surf, and a gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.
Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands,
And this full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.
——–
“Guarda, Straniero!”
Guarda, straniero, quest’isola adesso
la luce saltellante per il tuo piacere mostra,
sta’ fermo qui
e in silenzio,
che attraverso i canali dell’udito
può vagare come un fiume
l’oscillante suono del mare.
Fermati qui al limite del piccolo spazio
dove il muro di gesso cade
sulla schiuma, e le sue alte balze
si oppongono allo strappo
e al bussare della marea,
e i sassolini si mescolano dopo il risucchio
e il gabbiano si ferma
un istante nel suo volo verticale.
Lontane come semi fluttuanti le navi
divergono in urgenti volontarie missioni
e questa vista piena
può davvero penetrare la memoria
come adesso queste nuvole fanno,
superando lo specchio del porto
e tutta l’estate al passo lento dell’acqua.
(traduzione di Corinzia Monforte)
Look, stranger, at this island now by W.H. Auden
This poem us a “musical” exercise in which the poet reveals his technical skill by using sound techniques and figurative language to reinforce his description of a scene. It is one of Auden’s few poems of natural description, perhaps of the coast in the West Country of England.
The first stanza requires the stranger – someone unfamiliar with the island of kingdom of Britain but perhaps acquainted with the stereotype of it as a dull and gloomy place – to look at, and re-examine his prejudice about, Britain, as it is revealed (“discovered”) for his enjoyment by the sunlight dancing and flickering on the waves of the sea. The alliteration and consonance of -l- sounds (leaping, light, delight) and of the dental -t- and -d- sounds (light, delight, discovers) in the second line, and the variation of long vowel sounds in “leaping” and “light”, together with the repetition of “light”, creates a quick dancing effect which mimics the reflection of sunlight off waves
In two more commands the narrator requires the stranger to stand and remain quiet so that he can hear the sound of the sea, varying in volume, perhaps according to the fixity required, while the pattern of stresses on “wander” and “river”, in the penultimate line, and on “swaying sound of the sea”, in the last line, combined with the sibilance, conveys an idea of the changing volume of sound coming from the sea, and the continued whispering sound that it makes.
The second stanza invites the stranger to wait at the point where a small field ends in a chalk cliff, which drops to a shingle beach below. The waves surge up the beach until they are halted by the cliff. The assonance of the long -au-…
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