3. And see, buds break out of the tree a newer green in the grass

4. eases the heart:

5. bowed on the slope the tree seemed already dead,

6. And all I know of miracle ;

7. and I am this watery cloud that reflected today in the ditches,

8. the more blue, its fragment of heaven,

9. this green that splits the bark

10. that only last night was not there.

11. Specchio Ed ecco sul tronco si rompono gemme: un verde più nuovo dellerba che il cuore riposa: il tronco pareva già morto, piegato sul botro. E tutto mi sa di miracolo; e sono quellacqua di nube che oggi rispecchia nei fossi più azzurro il suo pezzo di cielo, quel verde che spacca la scorza che pure stanotte non cera. Salvatore Quasimodo

12. This poem, entitled Specchio (Mirror), was first published in Acque e terre in 1930: Its the beginning of spring, the seemingly dry branches of the trees are starting to get their first buds. Here's the bark splits, and sprouts the bud of a bright green, tender, more brilliant than grass. It's the life that revives after the long winter hibernation, and the poet's heart has a sigh of relief and the heart is resting," All this, for the poet,is a miracle and he feels part of nature waking up and of the enchanting spectacle of a sky bluer than ever that is reflected in the ditches swollen by rain and in the green bud that tonight wasnt there yet.

13. Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 - 1968) was an Italian poet exponent of Hermeticism, and has also received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959. Quasimodo's poetry reveals his character and thoughtful human. His obscurity was developed in an original way; Quasimodo in fact adopted a language gaunt but not devoid of musical nuances and marked by a note of sadness. His famous poem is and it is now evening.

14. He was born in Modica (Sicily). After completing his engineering studies in Palermo, Quasimodo travelled around Italy. He worked for the Department of Civil Engineering, but started writing poetry in his twenties, and his first important collection of poems, Acque e terre (Waters and lands), was published in 1930. Quasimodo was part of the cultural circles of Firenze, Roma and Milano, and wrote for several literary magazines. He also translated the works of many different poets, from the Latin Catullus to the English Shakespeare, from the Greek Sophocles to the Chilean Neruda. Quasimodo was in Milano during the Second World war, the horrors of which he described in the collected poems Giorno dopo giorno (Day after day), published in 1947. He died on the 17th of June 1968 in Napoli.