Lamartine in Livorno

“Why do you leap upon the foaming beach,
Waves in which no wind has carved furrows?
Why do you stir your steaming foam
In light swirls?
Why do you swing your foreheads that the dawn dries,
Forests, that rumble before the hour of waking?
Why from your branches you scatter like rain
Those silent tears with which they bathed you at night?
Why do you raise, oh flowers, your full chalices,
like a bowed brow that love lifts?
Why in the damp shade exhale…