[From the first Florentine Edition of the Poems, in the year 1831.]

To my Friends in Tuscany:

My dear Friends, I dedicate this book to you, in which, as is oft the case with Poets, I have sought to illustrate my sorrow, and with which I now—I cannot say it without tears—take leave of Literature and of my studies. I hoped these dear studies would have been the consolation of my old age, and thought, after having lost all the other joys and blessings of childhood and of youth, I had secured one, of which no power, no unhappiness could rob me. But I was scarcely twenty years old, when that weakness of nerves and of stomach, which has destroyed my life, and yet gives me no hope of death, robbed that only blessing of more than half its value, and, in my twenty-eighth year, has utterly deprived me of it, and, as I must think, forever. I have not been able to read these pages, and have been compelled to entrust their revision to other eyes and other hands. I will utter no more complaints, my dear friends; the consciousness of the depth of my affliction admits not of complaints and lamentations. I have lost all; I am a withered branch, that feels and suffers still. You only have I won! Your society, which must compensate me for all my studies, joys, and hopes, would almost outweigh my sorrows, did not my very sickness prevent me from enjoying it as I could wish, and did I not know that Fate will soon deprive me of this benefit, also, and will compel me to spend the remainder of my days, far from all the delights of civilized life, in a spot, far better suited to the dead than to the living. Your love, meanwhile, will ever follow me, and will yet cling to me, perhaps, when this body, which, indeed, no longer lives, shall be turned to ashes. Farewell! Your

Leopardi.