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Poetry · Chapter

Tutto è Sciolto explained

A solitary speaker reflects on a past love under a twilight sky, recalling the beloved's gentle features and the love that was almost fully possessed, now lost to time.

What happens

A solitary speaker reflects on a past love under a twilight sky, recalling the beloved's gentle features and the love that was almost fully possessed, now lost to time.

Themes in this chapter

  • Memory and Nostalgia

    The entire poem is a recollection of a past love, triggered by the twilight scene.

  • Transience and Loss

    The love is described as 'so faint, so far,' and the speaker questions why repine when the love was 'all but thine,' emphasizing its fleeting nature.

Characters to notice

  • Narrator

    The speaker, remembering a past love under the evening sky.

  • Beloved

    The one remembered, with 'clear young eyes' and 'fragrant hair,' who yielded love with a sigh.

Key passages

  • A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star Piercing the west, As thou, fond heart, love’s time, so faint, so far, Rememberest.

    Under a sky empty of birds, at dusk over the sea with a single star in the west, you, my loving heart, remember love's distant and faded time.

    The speaker sets the scene of memory.

  • The clear young eyes’ soft look, the candid brow, The fragrant hair, Falling as through the silence falleth now Dusk of the air.

    I recall the gentle gaze of young eyes, the honest forehead, the sweet-smelling hair, which now falls through the silence like the evening air.

    Vivid sensory memory of the beloved.

  • Why then, remembering those shy Sweet lures, repine When the dear love she yielded with a sigh Was all but thine?

    So why, when remembering those shy, sweet enticements, should I complain, since the precious love she gave with a sigh was almost entirely mine?

    The speaker questions his own regret over a love that was nearly possessed.