“And then we cowards”

By Cesare Pavese 1908–1950 Cesare Pavese

Translated By Geoffrey Brock

And then we cowards

who loved the whispering

evening, the houses,

the paths by the river,

the dirty red lights

of those places, the sweet

soundless sorrow—

we reached our hands out

toward the living chain

in silence, but our heart

startled us with blood,

and no more sweetness then,

no more losing ourselves

on the path by the river—

no longer slaves, we knew

we were alone and alive.

“‘And then we cowards’” from Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950 by Cesare Pavese. Published in 2002 by Copper Canyon Press. Used by permission Copper Canyon Press.

Source: Dissaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950 (Copper Canyon Press, 2002)

Biography

Cesare Pavese is widely regarded as one of the foremost men of letters in twentieth-century Italian cultural history, and in particular as an emblematic figure: an earnest writer maimed by fascism and struggling with the modern existentialist dilemma of alienated meaning. Little known in the United States, Pavese was profoundly influenced by American literature, and, when official censorship closed his mouth, he would use his . . .

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