Eugenio Montale: The Eel

The eel, the siren

 of freezing oceans, who leaves the Baltic

 to reach our seas,

 our estuaries, the rivers

 that she climbs again, deep under opposing tides

 of branch narrowing into more slender branch, and then

 in the root fibers of streams piercing

 always closer to the rock’s heart,

 filtering like bright water through

 rivulets of mere mud until one day

 light flashed from chestnut leaves

 lights up the quiver in a dead pool,

 in runnels that slant down

 from the ridges of the Apennine to the Romagna;

 the eel, torch, whip,

 Love’s arrow on earth

 which only our stagnant ditches or the dried

 streams of the Pyrenees lead back

 to paradises of fecundity;

 the green spirit who seeks

 life there only

 where drought and desolation gnaw,

 the spark that says

 everything begins where everything seems

 charcoal, a burnt-down stump;

 brief rainbow, iris, twin

 to the glance mounted within your lashes

 which you keep sparkling and untouched

 in the midst of the sons

 of Man, all sunk in your mire—Can you

 not see she’s your sister?


One of the greatest animal poems of the twentieth century. One of the greatest poems of the twentieth century. It's said there are more than fifty versions in English - this is by Millicent Bell, first published in Agni.